Brief  History

In 1872, the property for our present church building was deeded to the Trustees of the Wesleyan Methodist Church.

Our church has Methodist and Presbyterian roots.

From 1925 to 1939 Alliston had two United Church congregations, Wesleyan United Church and Knox United Church.

In July 1939, these two churches joined, becoming St. John's United Church.

Burns United Church (Essa) was closed in 1969. Their membership roll was transferred to St. John's Church.

                                                                                                    The Archives Ministry

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            "History" (sort of) - Classic Sermons - (worth keeping for a while)

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November 15th, 2009    "Interpreting the Signs of the Times"    Rev. Dr. Harold Wells

        Isaiah 32: 9-17; Matthew 16: 1-4

I was invited by your Mission and Outreach Ministry this morning specifically to speak about Kairos and its work. 

Kairos is an ecumenical coalition of the Christian churches in Canada working together on matters of social justice and the environment.  Nearly all the major churches of Canada are involved: the Presbyterian, Lutheran, United Church, Roman Catholic, Anglican, Mennonites, Quakers, and Christian Reformed.

The Greek word Kairos, with a capital K, means the Critical Time, or Time of Opportunity, Time of Decision.

Kairos has a professional staff of researchers, writers and educators, located in Toronto, who work full time providing leadership and resources for the work of Kairos across the country.  Kairos speaks to government on behalf of the churches, and seeks to educate the public on crucial moral and ethical issues facing the country. 

For the last couple of years, and for a few years ahead, the focus of Kairos is Climate Change, especially as it relates to energy.  What I will say this morning on these issues derives partly from the many books and articles now published on this topic, but also from the research and resources of our Kairos staff.

Our Old Testament text this morning was pretty dark, wasn't it? At least the people Isaiah was speaking to all those centuries ago must have been alarmed by what the prophet was saying.  He was addressing a time of dire national crisis, one of social injustice and of international conflict.  But his words seem to fit our present time.

"Rise up, you people who are at ease, hear my voice; you complacent ones .... In a little more than a year you will shudder, you complacent ones, for the vintage will fail, the fruit harvest will not come.  Tremble you ... who are at ease, shudder, you complacent ones .... "

Isaiah was interpreting the signs of the times.  It was a Kairos time, a critical time of decision, and he was calling the nation to change direction.  He didn't fear to get concrete and to 'talk politics'.

In the gospel lesson we read this morning Jesus also tells his followers to "interpret the signs of the times."  In other words, be alert to what's going on around you.  The people were asking Jesus for a supernatural sign to back up his message.  But he said, No sign will be given to this generation.  No sign but the sign of Jonah.

Now Jonah was a prophet sent to the city of Nineveh to warn the people of disaster to come.  The only sign, says Jesus, will be the warning of a prophet.

Sometimes we glimpse a tough side to Jesus.  This gentle, loving man was not naive about the harsh realities of life.  He was a shrewd observer of the power dynamics of the world he lived in.  He knew where the power was, who was getting rich at the expense of others, and who was getting hurt.  As his followers we must take him seriously when he says "interpret the signs of the times."

Well, if we consider the "signs of the times" today, probably the most serious thing that's going on in the world right now is a huge crisis with the environment - climate change and global warming - as these are connected to fossil fuels as our chief energy source.

Why talk about this in church?  Isn't this politics?  Isn't this science?  What does it have to do with religion?

The answer is that our problems around energy and environment are, at their root, moral and spiritual in nature.  Because our relationship to the world of nature is a spiritual relationship.  Our United Church creed affirms this, when it calls us to "live with respect in creation."

This implies that we must honour and cherish the natural world, and live in harmony with it. We are part of the natural order, and when we do harm, it will respond with violence.

A famous author, James Lovelock, a distinguished geo-physiologist, wrote a book called The Revenge of Gaia.  He sees the planet earth as a living organism, which he calls 'Gaia' (the name of a Greek goddess) .

Gaia, he says, will rid itself of any organism that threatens its overall well-being.  He thinks that if we abuse the world of nature, it will have its revenge upon us, and our very survival as a human race is at stake.  An ancient prophet like Isaiah would have seen this as a kind of judgment of God, a kind of justice falling upon us, if we fail to change direction.

If we read the newspapers, we know that the planet's revenge is beginning to happen now.  We are facing a double crisis: one about energy, the other about environment, and the two are closely linked.

First of all, as for environment, we can observe that there has been more violent weather lately.  Hurricanes, and tornadoes, and other extreme weather conditions, have become more numerous and more intense than ever.  Katrina, at New Orleans, was a dramatic depiction of what may lie ahead.

But it's not just subjective impressions about the weather that we go by.  Fine measurements of the layers of ice in the polar regions have revealed to climate scientists the history of the earth's climate, showing an unprecedented heating up of the planet in recent years.

Of course we've all seen it on TV, especially on David Suzuki's programs, warning us of the melting ice in both the north and south polar regions.  It seems there's no doubt about it now.  The scientific consensus is pretty well unanimous.

During the twentieth century, average global temperatures have risen by 0.6 degrees Celsius over the pre-industrial age, - doesn't seem like much, but, we're told that such a change can have enormous implications for weather patterns; it can result in drought, the drying up of lakes, the alteration of the gulf stream in the oceans, the destruction of plant, fish, and animal life.  It can create deserts, bring on forest fires, and make human life unviable in most of the planet.

But we also have to be aware of economic relationships.  Who benefits from the present situation?  Who is getting rich from oil and gas production and the continuing use of fossil fuels?

Let's consider the most elementary facts.  We know now that climate change is largely a result of the burning of fossil fuels.  Namely COAL, especially for producing electricity.  And NATURAL GAS, also used to generate electricity, and to heat our houses and other buildings.  And OIL, used especially for petroleum, to empower our cars, trucks, ships and airplanes, and to empower industries and agriculture.

Forgive me if I'm telling you elementary things that you already know, but in case some of you are new to this subject, the burning of these fossil fuels puts carbon dioxide into the air, which rises and produces a kind of ceiling, rather like a greenhouse roof on the planet earth, which traps heat in the atmosphere.  It makes the planet like a greenhouse, through maintaining heat that would otherwise exit into outer space.

Now we know that life can exist on the planet earth only because we are located at exactly the right distance from the sun, which provides just the right amount of heat, so that the rich life of this wonderful planet can thrive.  That's what we are messing with when we heat up the planet with carbon dioxide emissions.

And this is increasing rapidly with expanding industrialization and never ending "economic growth," in North America and Europe, but also now in places like China, India and Brazil.

Recently we've hard a lot about capturing the carbon dioxide that's coming out of coal, oil or gas, and storing it underground.  This is hopeful, though I understand that the technology for carbon capture and storage is still uncertain, and the process very expensive.  We would have to expend a lot of energy, first to get the fuels out of the ground, and then, also, pump the carbon back underground again.  So carbon capture and storage would need to be sufficiently inexpensive so as not to negate the value of the energy source itself.  In the meantime this technology is in its infancy.

One of the most alarming aspects of our human carbon emissions is the rising of the seas, because of the melting of the polar ice caps.  Apparently this is no longer a theory; it's already happening.  Recently I saw a TV program showing that parts of the coast of England are now being reclaimed by the ocean.

At a recent Kairos event we heard from a young girl from the Solomon Islands in the Pacific, telling us that the rising sea is already claiming parts of her country, now submerged underwater.  Coastlines all over the world will be threatened by rising seas, producing vast poverty, and huge refugee populations.  Imagine the destabilization of the world, as millions flee the rising seas.  Imagine the international conflict generated by these circumstances.

Now unfortunately, our life style is totally dependent on these carbon producing fuels, particularly oil.  This brings us to the other side of the crisis: the depletion of energy resources.

The fossil fuels, which took millions of years to develop under the ground, are finite resources, especially oil.  Perhaps you've heard of 'peak oil' - i.e., the assertion that the accessible oil in the ground is about to peak, that in just over a century, we've already used about half of what's there.

As our industrialization expands, not only in our part of the world, but in parts of the Third World, oil consumption is rising rapidly.  But the supply won't last forever, and at some point in the next few years it's likely to become far more scarce, and much more expensive than ever before.

I suppose that in the long run this could be good news for 'Gaia'.  But meanwhile it will have huge implications for the future of industry, transportation and agriculture.  Unfortunately we are totally addicted to our cars, and some of us are addicted to air travel, which is one of the very worst contributors to climate change.

Unfortunately we are also addicted to eating, and have become highly dependent on the transportation of trucks, to say nothing of farm machinery, pesticides and fertilizers, much of this dependent on oil.

This means, to begin with, tearing up vast regions of boreal forest, so far an area about as large as the whole of the maritime provinces.  Imagine tearing up the whole of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island to get oil!  That in itself contributes to climate change, because forests function to reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Now most of the bitumen is actually very deep, up to 600 meters below the surface, and has to be extracted by sinking deep pipes, through which hot water and steam is pressed to separate the bitumen from the clay, and to bring it to the surface.  This process uses up great amounts of precious natural gas, to heat up the fresh water, to produce the steam.  Then this very thick bitumen has to be upgraded, using again, great amounts of energy and water, before it gets shipped off to refineries.

So we are using up natural gas and clean water to obtain dirty oil.  This has been compared to using gold to obtain lead.  The natural gas, after all, is a finite resource, extremely important for heating purposes in Canada.  It will not last forever, but we are rapidly using it up - why? To obtain oil.

Or, I should say, the Americans are using it up, because, under the NAFTA agreement most of the gas and oil produced in western Canada is piped south to the U.S. (While we in eastern Canada import oil from places like Algeria and the Mid-East).

Not only that, but great amounts of fresh water are being used from the local lakes and rivers, and evidently much of this water is not recoverable, but sits in huge toxic waste ponds.  Fresh water too is a priceless, indispensable commodity.

And, even more important, we know that the abuse of the rivers and lakes in the region is also threatening the lives and livelihood of the indigenous people in that area - through an increase in cancers, and the loss of fishing and hunting grounds.

There are a number of American and European companies making profits from the tar sands, but Canadian companies too, which earned a total of $26.4 billion last year.  Despite the great profitability of these companies, the Canadian government subsidized them to the tune of $1.4 billion. It's hard to believe that these companies would do so badly without government charity.

And, true enough, it also provides lots of jobs to ordinary workers. So there's lots of public. support for the tar sands, and its subsidization, especially in western Canada.

Meanwhile, we might ask: Is it in someone's interest that we keep driving gas guzzling vehicles?  Consider what could be done with an extra 1.4 billion dollars if it were invested in the development of green cars, and generally assisting the transition from an oil economy to a green economy.

Everyone knows that we're going to have to move to alternative energy sources, massively, and very soon.  In other words - solar, wind, biomass, geo-thermal, and so on, need to be developed rapidly, and massively.

Maybe the good news is that we're not all that helpless.  Maybe we can be part of a solution.

There are two levels at which solutions can be found: the systemic level, and the personal level.  By systemic I mean the level of large systems and structures.  I mean it would have to be governments that enact laws with teeth in them, regulations regarding carbon emissions, tax incentives and appropriate subsidies aimed at green development.

Some countries in Europe are far ahead of us - especially in Scandinavia and Germany - with their enormous wind, solar and geo-thermal developments.

Energy self-sufficient buildings - yes, isn't that exciting? - energy self-sufficient buildings are possible - even energy self-sufficient churches?  It is possible for a house or other buildings to be energized by solar and geo-thermal sources.  By geo-thermal I mean heat in the winter, and cooling (air conditioning) in the summer, from underground.

But such a development in buildings generally is not likely to happen unless governments use tax policies, or cap and trade systems, to make it happen.  And, in turn, governments will only enforce these things if the public wants them to do so. Governments will only do what people demand, to get themselves elected.

That's why it's worth pressuring governments to act, and rewarding them when they do. Political parties need to be rewarded, rather than punished, when they have the courage to speak out on these things.

But if we're going to ask political parties and governments to stick their necks out, maybe we have to act personally as well.  At the personal level we can all be part of the solution, - by becoming part of a new ecological consciousness, a new ecological culture.

We can do some of the obvious things we already know about: use energy efficient light bulbs, turn off the lights, turn off the computer, turn down the heat, install better windows, check the efficiency of insulation in our homes, use cloth bags rather than plastic bags for our groceries. (Plastic, remember, is made with oil, and therefore also carries a carbon footprint.)

Then there's our cars and trucks.  Maybe the next time we buy a new car, some of us should seriously think about purchasing a smaller, more fuel efficient car, maybe a hybrid or electric car.  We might wonder, Why is it taking so long to get those electric cars going?  Big expensive cars are not cool anymore.  You know what's really cool in transportation?  Those little smart cars, or preferably scooters or bicycles.

Have you heard of WWJD?  What would Jesus do?  It's an old joke, but maybe some of you have not heard it. WWJD now means: 'What would Jesus drive'? This Jesus who rode a humble donkey.  Can you imagine him driving a big gas guzzler?

All these things I've mentioned are small things, but if we all did them together, it would make a huge difference. "Small things count," as the hymn says. 

As I said, this is at root, a spiritual problem. It has to do with our consumerism, of course.  Our worship of things, and our essential greed.  Surely Christian people, and the churches, ought to be leading the way in the cultural change that needs to occur.

Small things count, even a small thing like signing a petition, asking the government to act decisively, so that Canada can play its part in global change.  A petition is available to you this morning after church.  Kairos has already accumulated 100,000 signatures on these petitions, from churches across the country, and hope to have another 100,000 before the Copenhagen conference on climate change next month.

The Kairos petition, follows the recommendations of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change of the United Nations.  The recommendation is science based.  It says we have to reduce carbon emissions by 25% from 1990 levels by 2020, - 25% from 1990 levels, within 10 years.

That is a very ambitious target.  Only a huge worldwide social mobilization can make it happen.  Something like a mobilization for war, where everybody gets involved.  If we don't do it, global warming will reach a tipping point, and take off irreversibly.

So would you please sign the petition, and add your voice to a great throng of people demanding decisive action on climate change.  Will you do your small part, in your personal life style, and in your role as a citizen, to bring about change.

This is up to us. There will be no supernatural intervention that will solve this problem for us.  As Jesus says in our text this morning: No sign will be given to this generation, but the sign of Jonah.  That is, the warnings of the prophets who tell of judgment and destruction to come.  Let us heed his warning: Shudder, and tremble, you complacent ones, says Isaiah.

But there is also promise in this text.  The Spirit of God will lead and empower us: "When the Spirit is poured out upon us, .... Justice will dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness abide in the fruitful field.  The effect of righteousness will be peace, and the result of righteousness, quietness and trust forever ....  "

Amen.

Some Sources for Extra Reading:

Kairos,  Creating a Climate for Justice. (Available from www.kairoscanada.org)

James Lovelock,  The Revenge of Gaia

Thomas Homer-Dixon,  The Upside of Down

George Monbiot,  Heat: How to Stop the Planet from Burning

Kenneth S. Deffeys,  Beyond Oil: The View form Hubbert's Peak

Linda McQuaig,  It's the Crude, Dude: War, Big Oil and the Fight for the Planet

Richard Heinberg,  Powerdown: Options and Actions for- a Post-Carbon World.

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October 25th, 2009        "Walking in the Way"        Rev. Elizabeth Eberhart-Moffat

Reflections on the Camino   --  157^th anniversary

Texts: Genesis 17:1-8,15,16 and Matthew 5:1-12

Looking through the bulletin yesterday, I knew ahead of time that by this point in the service I would be feeling quite emotional. Moved by the words of the liturgy; previewing the line - up of sacred song that Ken and the choir have prepared for this anniversary; knowing I’d be back in these hallowed walls where Peter and our little family experienced significant moments in our journey together; and looking out upon a congregation in which many treasured souls who were there back then, would be celebrating with me, .. well, I just knew that by now .. I’d be feeling what my mother always described as “beyond all beyonds”. “Beyond all beyonds”. It was her way of naming what the Spirit does to us when we are transported to another realm, slightly off the earth’s surface.

Thank you for the opportunity to be among you again as this year’s Anniversary Speaker. You may remember that I was supposed to have been in this place last year, but had to be spelled off by a compassionate colleague in the person of Harry Oussoren, who I know served you well that day. My absence had to do with the birth of our first grand daughter, Allison Elizabeth Dickson Moffat, and the postponement of a long anticipated trip to Spain with six other women. So, a year later now, I wish to share with you some highlights from the pilgrimage we made together, conscious that our 31 day walk across northern Spain, last October, had a lot to teach me about the journey we share as Christ’s disciples.

All of us know that the theme of ‘journey’ has been an integral part of our faith story ever since the ancients first theologized around their campfires:

·                           Adam and Eve, unhappily expelled from their paradise home in Eden;

·                           Noah and his menagerie aboard the Ark, hoping for new life even amidst an earth-embracing flood;

·                           Abraham and Sarah and a Covenant which promised them many descendants, yet required of them a departure from their well established home and a journey toward a new Land;

·                           Jacob and his journey to the land of his Uncle Laban;

·                           Joseph’s journey into Egypt, as one who had been sold into slavery; then ..

·                           Moses, the Exodus and 40 years of wandering in the Desert of Sin;

·                           Joshua who finally led the Israelites across the Jordan into the Promised Land of Canaan.

·                           “Take up your cross and follow me,” Jesus said, as his own faith journey led him ever on toward a date with destiny in Jerusalem;

·                           And those who dared to follow? They soon became known as people of ‘The Way’.

2000 years hence, and we are gathered here on your 157^th year as a congregation to celebrate the ‘Saints’ in your history, your present and in your future, who in hearing God’s call, have followed, and will follow in the difficult Way of faith, becoming true pilgrims.

To literally participate in a pilgrimage, has also been an important way to demonstrate and express faith down through the ages. It was also a way to do penance and receive forgiveness. I was told by my genealogy-loving Dad of an ancient Eberhart relative of ours, who over 500 years ago, led 40 pilgrims of faith from their home in Stuttgart, Germany to the Holy Land and back. The full journey took them seven months, lasting from July through February. And in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, it is recorded, that Eberhart felt so moved to dedicate his life in faith, that he made a pledge to God: He would give the rest of his life on this earth to the cause of theological education. And, as a sign of this pledge, he would never again cut his beard.

He thus became known as ‘Eberhard im Bart’ (Eberhart the Beard) and was instrumental in the establishment of Tübingen University, one of Germany’s oldest institutions of higher learning and internationally known for its humanities program.

Perhaps this story, which captured my early imagination, had something to do with the urge I felt last fall to walk the famous Camino de Santiago de Compestola with six other women. I do know that in a moment of compassion for a friend of mine, who loved Spain and who was dying so prematurely of cancer, I found myself promising that I would walk the Camino in celebration of her brave life. This promise seemed to pluck a chord on the strings of her heart. I was now committed.

So, on September 16^th, we flew from Toronto to take up a pilgrimage that ranks third in significance for Christians who visit Jerusalem and Rome. Pilgrims in the tens of thousands each year set out from their front doorstep or popular starting points across Europe or fly in from around the world to share the 800 kilometer experience of walking or biking the Camino de Santiago de Compestola, the Way of St. James, patron saint of Spain.

Having spent 33 years in public ministry as an extrovert, it was my hope that this trip would finally allow me the intense personal time I craved to deepen and broaden my personal faith. Somehow I imagined it possible to walk all those kilometers for the most part in meditative silence, believing that God would be able speak to me with more significance in this manner. How laughable it seemed on completing the Camino, to have had confirmed instead - a truth I have always understood really .. that the ‘Way’ of faith is not a singular way, but a way peopled by an amazing community of human souls.

First, were the other pilgrims from around the world with whom we daily rubbed shoulders.. in the albergues (or dormitories) where we slept in bunk beds lined up beside each other, or at table together sharing the traditional ‘pilgrim meal’. The very first night on the road in a small community called ‘Uterga’, a 17 km walk from where we began in Pamplona, we gathered hungrily with 20 others around one long table to be served by two delightful sisters, who were the innkeepers and our hosts . A member of our group had brought a traveling ‘peace candle’ with the hope of carrying it all the way to Santiago. But that first days walk up and down commanding hills with a heavy pack, had convinced her that the peace candle would make a much better gift for these sisters. A ceremony of offering felt somehow demanded by the moment, so we rose to address the group and waited as translations went around the table in Spanish, French and German. Everyone was asked why they were on the Camino. And, in short order, the stories began to move among us and bind us together.

A man named Eddie from Germany had come to the Camino to honour his wife, who had died that year of cancer; Anne from Texas needed to break away from her stressful work and to leave technology behind for a time; Jarren and Pam, young Christians from California, were seeking direction for their lives. One young man from Santiago was told by his psychiatrist that he needed to be on medication. He responded to this prescription by saying, what he really needed was to be on the Camino instead. José, a grandfather who gave us Spanish lessons on the way, had made walking sections of the Camino each year, a discipline for his life. He used a special staff that had been the gift of a former pilgrim. A French couple had walked from their home to celebrate their life of companionship. Two New Zealanders in their 80’s were walking with their granddaughter. Many on the road were honouring significant changes in their lives .. a time of retirement, an entry into a new decade, recovering from an illness, an operation or a loss.

During that first night on the Camino, we began to feel the work of the Spirit among us, weaving each of us into a colourful international tapestry of story and faith that offered both comfort and strength for the long journey. Everywhere people along the way in small towns or at work in their fields and vineyards, waved to us or nodded and encouraged us with the traditional blessing of the ‘Way’. “Buen Camino”, they would say. One special morning on the outskirts of Pontferrada, a grape grower traveling to market, offered each of us a large clump of green grapes from his trailer. Never was anything so sweet or delicious, since Joshua brought back giant grapes from the Promised land to encourage the Israelites! Truly this was the fruit of the gods! So together there on the road with grapes and bread, we celebrated a spontaneous agape meal.

Yet the legion of saints we encountered on the road were more than those immediately with us. Walking down old stony paths, along ancient walls and over Roman bridges; looking up into the shady canopy of giant chestnut trees and walking amidst the earthy pungency of their primordial roots; finding stone markers along the way covered with the pebbles of people's prayers piled up as they had passed by; visiting the churches and monasteries and cathedrals along the way, or seeing hundreds of crosses made from branches, woven into chain link fences by the highway .. all bore witness to the saints who had preceded us in time on this journey. Their presence in the Spirit was palpable to us.

Especially this was so as we reached one of the highest points on the Camino, just past the mountain top town of Foncebadon. Here at a summit of 1504 meters, is a giant iron cross, the ‘Cruz de Ferro’, where pilgrims have traditionally left their remembrances, pictures of lost loved ones, trinkets of remembrances and intercessional prayers that have piled up into their own sizeable hill. In all there were seven women from Parkminster for whom we walked as the ‘Camino Chicas’, seven women whose life journeys had been prematurely cut short by cancer. And it was here in this place that we felt them moving us to actually do something commemorative for them.

So, on a large rock, we wrote with big letters from a black marker pen that miraculously emerged from a back pack, these words: “In celebration of your lives, lived with such remarkable courage: Susan, Barb, Amy, Wilma, Carol, Nesta and Pat. Buen Camino, Chicas.” Placing this rock at the very foot of the cross, confirmed our teary connection with these sister saints across time and space and even death itself.

In retrospect I can’t imagine ever having found the strength or courage to complete this epic journey without the other six women who graced my days with their wisdom, their friendship and their wonderful good humour. Who ever thinks we can successfully make this journey of faith alone? It would all seem like some unreal dream if we did not have each other to confirm our shared experience, to remember all the precious moments of intervention by the Spirit, to collectively learn from our experience, and to celebrate in worship the privilege of this ancient and blessed journey.

On October 19^th, my friends and I had the supreme joy of attending the Pilgrim’s mass at the Cathedral in Santiago. Pilgrims who had been arriving that week were gathered. There was standing room only. A nun with the voice of an angel, taught us and prepared us for the musical liturgies that would follow in the service. The choir, in wonderful harmony that echoed through that magnificent acoustical setting, sang an ode to joy. The priest welcomed us and embraced us with his strong and vibrant voice. We were an international community, he said, of Protestants and Catholics from many places around the world. Then he named us by country and the places from which we had started. He talked about the history of the pilgrimage and the tradition we shared. And he told us that we must now turn from being pilgrims to becoming missionaries, taking back into the world the vision of a unity undaunted by differences, of which we had all become a part.

Later, on the steps of the cathedral by a bubbling fountain, pilgrims who had perhaps shared a meal together on the journey, had walked and talked and slept beside each other and shared their stories .. embraced one another there in the sunshine, recognized each other as ‘the saints’ whom God had provided on the journey, and together in many languages, bid farewell as lives turned homeward to loved ones and families and commitments that awaited us all.

“Happy are those who are spiritually poor, with only a back pack of resources to sustain them on the journey. Happy are those who mourn, those who are humble and those whose greatest desire is to do what God requires. Happy are those who are merciful to others and pure in heart. Happy are those who work for peace and are persecuted because they put the priorities of God first.” This ‘Way’ of Jesus we are called to follow as pilgrims of faith, is not an easy Way. It goes uphill against a mountain of greed and fear and worldly resistance. But it is peopled by the saints, who accompany us, who comfort us and have mercy for us, and who show us just how privileged we are to be making this journey together.

On this anniversary day, as we celebrate the rich history of 157 years that has brought you thus far as a congregation .. and as together we draw on the Spirit’s strength for the challenges and the blessings that still await us – on the Way .. may I thank you for honouring the small part our family played in your sacred story, and may I personally bless you with the words of the ‘Pilgrim Prayer’:

Guardian of our souls,

Guide us on our way this day.

Keep us sage from harm.

Deepen our relationship with you,

Your earth, and all your family.

Strengthen your love within us

That we may be a presence of your peace

In our world. Amen.

‘Buen Camino’ faithful friends. May God go with you.

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August 30^th, 2009        "When Talk is Too Easy"        Rev. Elaine Longland

            James 1:17-27            Mark 7:1-8, 14, 15, 21-23

The primary gospel focus for this lectionary year is Mark’s gospel. For the past few weeks, however, we have taken a slight detour into John’s gospel. This morning we have returned to the Gospel of Mark. Just to bring us up to date about where we are in Mark’s gospel and to put this morning’s lesson into context, I’m going to provide a bit of a review.

By the time of this encounter with the Scribes and the Pharisees, Jesus is considerably into his ministry. Already he has preached some of his most memorable parables–the sower, the lamp under the bushel, the harvest, the mustard seed. He has demonstrated his power in the feeding of the five thousand and walking on the water, not to mention the healing of every sort of illness.

Everywhere Jesus goes, his reputation draws multitudes. They come out of curiosity and hope. People are asking new questions of their faith: what it means to be God’s people. There is controversy, energy and wonder in the air. And in the midst of it all, the Pharisees ask, “But did you wash your hands before dinner?”

“How blind and arrogant can they be?” we ask. We like Jesus’ stinging rebuke, “This people honours me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.” Serves them right.

And yet how easy it is to condemn! Especially when we, like the Pharisees, have a built-in set of rules of our own about what is acceptable and appropriate and right. How many of us would have problems taking advice from a young man who was covered in tattoos and body-piercings and wearing a bandana? How many of us would be upset if the young woman sitting beside us this morning seemed to be dressed more appropriately for the beach? How many of us have difficulty being friendly to the family on our street who has noisy parties every weekend?

Where do these rules about what is acceptable come from? Our parents? Our teachers? The Bible? Or does it just seem that is the way it has always been for us.

Those built-in rules define who we are. We are the people who do this and this and this. We are the people who honour these rules whatever they may be. And we seem to seek out friends who hold the same values which tends to make us even more sure that the values we hold are the right ones.

One of Hitler’s naval officers, George Duckwitz, warned Danish leaders, and on the night of October 1^st, 1943, at the risk of their own lives, Christians hid Jews in their homes and smuggled them through the streets to the waterfront. They loaded men, women and children onto fishing boats and pleasure craft. In the darkness, evading Nazi patrol boats they smuggled 7, 300 people across the Oresund Strait to neutral Sweden.

Many of those who escaped to Sweden returned after the war and took up business again in the shops their Christian neighbours had kept open for them until they returned. Christians are known by their love: a love that is lived out in acts of risk and sacrifice.

I no longer believe in a god who keeps track of such things as how often we say our prayers, how often we have communion, how we spend our Sundays. I believe in a God who has planted within each of us a need to be generous and compassionate and caring. And it is when we respond to this need within, by reaching out to others, that we identify ourselves as Christians. Thanks be to God. Amen.

                        --------------------------------------

August 9th, 2009        "Spirituality and Healing"        Rev. Arch McCurdy

      Psalm 103 VU 825        Mark 1:21-28 

The subject comes from a request from the hospital in Alliston, to present an In-Service to the hospital staff on Spirituality and Healing.  And not wanting to overwork my brain, I decided that with appropriate modifications to preach this sermon on the same subject.  Perhaps it would be helpful, if I shared with you the conclusions and then proceeded to explain how I got there.

The conclusion comes from a scientist by the name of Bruce H. Lipton. (You can learn oodles about him on the internet.)  His discovery, on which he has been working for 20 years, is that our cells  - about which the average human has about 30 trillion-  are not closed envelopes, as medical science has long believed.  Within each of these cells are vitally determining agents  - our genes and our DNA.

 Instead of the cells being closed envelopes, Dr. Lipton – now verified by others, discovered that our human cells have tiny receptors through which our genes and DNA can be modified  by the environment surrounding the cells.

Now you may think that these may be exciting new discoveries in the field of medical science, but what has it to do religion?  What caught my attention is that these discoveries have a great deal to do with our religion, our faith and our belief.  It is for this reason that Dr. Lipton titled his book The Biology of Belief.  Furthermore to quote from the jacket of his new book, The Biology of Belief,

            This book will forever change how you think about your own thinking.

            Stunning new scientific discoveries about the biochemical effects of the brain ‘s

functioning show that all the cells of your body are affected, not just by chemistry

of our bodies, but by our thoughts.

                                                       Bruce H. Lipton, PhD. The Biology of Belief, 2008

 

The first question that came to my mind was:  If I always think holy thoughts, will I become a more holy person?  I will leave that question open ended!

 

You see, It reminds me of that 'old saw' of the difference between an optimist and a pessimist.

The optimist wakes up in the morning saying “Good Morning, God”

The pessimist wakes up and says “Good God, morning”!         You know where you fit!!

 

 But … if a person who is suffering from an illness really believes that he/she will recover, such thoughts can have a profound effect on the healing process.  Often this is referred to as faith healing.  Now, this is not a new discovery.  What is new is the bio-chemical processes that make possible that which is sometimes experienced as “miraculous healings”.

A Flashback of  Miracles of Healing --   A woman who had been suffering from haemorrhages for twelve years touched the hem of his garment: Jesus said to her Daughter, your faith has made you well, go in peace. (Luke 8:43.48)

The one and only means for healing was faith.

Faith was the result of belief in God.

Belief in God put you into the arms of religion,

which in turn brought you into the church.

Salvation and Healing – these were the primary rewards which belief, and the Church, had to offer.

 

Since the church taught that the planet is the centre of the Universe, we earthlings had it made.  Then along comes Nicolas Copernicus, who published his scientific discovery in 1543, that the earth was not the centre of the Universe, but rather it circled around the sun.

This was a profound challenge to the “infallibility” of the Church.  Science eventually displaced the Church as Western civilization’s source of wisdom, for understanding the mysteries of the Universe.   (Ibid p.32)  People, including Christians, began to put God on hold.

The second challenge to the Church was the publication of Charles Darwin’s The Origin of the Species 1859.  It wasn’t that Darwin didn’t believe in God, rather that he implied that chance, not Divine intervention, was responsible for the character of life on Earth.  Darwin further suggested that “hereditary factors” passed from parent to children controlled the characteristics of an individual’s life.

Thus dawned the age of Evolution.  We humans were not created full blown as we were taught in Sunday School.  Genesis 1 &2 have interesting insights, but it’s not history.  God was put a little further on hold.  

Scientists began to scramble to discover what forces or agents were at work which resulted in inherited family traits.  Intensive studies of the human brain resulted in amazing discoveries.

When I worked in the chemistry lab in 1947-48 the smallest entity was a molecule.  Now we are in the Age of Genetics.  It is those genes which determine whether I fail to retain my hair, or you are left handed!

One of the negative results is that it leaves people highly anxious that on some unsuspecting moment they will be struck down with a heart attack.  The fear is based on the fact that the father or uncles died of heart attacks.

 There can be and often are many other factors other than genes that result in sickness in whatever form: such as life style, diet, excessive stress, and on it goes.

Let’s move on to the past twenty years or so.

Bruce Lipton, in his book, The Biology of Belief, tells how he made the connection between quantum physics and biology.  If you haven’t dozed off, one small statement has to be made about quantum physics.  Quantum physicists discovered that physical atoms are made up of vortices of energy that are constantly spinning and vibrating; each atom is like a wobbly spinning top that radiates energy.          (ibid p.70) 

The end result of this discovery is the realization that energy and matter are one and the same.  That is what Albert Einstein recognized when he developed the famous equation  E=MC2.

I always thought the universe was made of physical objects (matter) separated by dead space.  The new paradigm – at least new to me is this:  The Universe is one indivisible, dynamic whole in which energy and matter are so deeply entangled it is impossible to consider them as independent elements.           (ibid p.71)

It naturally follows therefore, that the mind, which is energy, and body, which is matter are bound, although Western medicine has tried valiantly to separate them for years.

The breakthrough about which Dr. Lipton writes, is that  Thoughts, the mind’s energy, directly influence how the physical brain controls the body’s physiology.

Two questions remain:      How does that happen?    and   What are the consequences?

The “how” is answered by the discovery that the walls of the brains cells have identity receptors which pick up influences, including thoughts, which penetrate the cell walls and can effect changes in the genes within the cell.  Genes are not the final determining factor, as has been understood since they were discovered.

If you considered your body as a television set, the physical television is the equivalent of the human cell.  The TV’s antenna, which downloads the broadcast, represents our full set of identifying receptors and the broadcast represents an environmental influence from outside the cell.

Lipton tells an interesting story to illustrate of the power of these changed cells.

          One conservative, health-conscious New Englander, Claire Sylvia, was astonished

          when she developed a taste for beer, chicken nuggets, and motorcycles

after her heart-lung transplant.

Sylvia talked to the donor’s family and found she had the heart of an eighteen-year-old motorcycle enthusiast who loved chicken nuggets and beer.  She wrote a book, A Change of Heart, in which she outlines her transformational experiences, as well as similar experiences of other patients in her transplant support group.   (Ibid  p.161)

The conclusion is that our “traits” are not controlled by our genes, but by the environment in which we are situated.  Because the environment represents “All that is” (God) and our self-receptor antennas download only a narrow band of the whole spectrum, we all represent a small part of the whole . . .a small part of God      (ibid p.162)

Lipton, who began his scientific studies and experiments as an atheist, has become a believer in a Divine Being, and is in all probability the Energy which is essential to our survival.  We are made in the image of our “Environment”.

That reminds me of Genesis 1 where God created us in God’s own image.

What we do with that image is influenced by the kind of environment with which we are associated.  Those cell walls can be penetrated with thoughts that are loving, compassionate, and forgiving.

It seems to me that is what the Church should be all about.  A community of like-minded people who are moving toward advancing human civilization by realizing that the Survival of – not just the fittest – but the Survival of the Most Loving, is the only way to go.

You can’t put God on hold.           Hello, God are you still there?   – I am listening.               Amen.

                           -------------------------------------

November 9th, 2008        “The Torch Held High”        Rev. Dr. Alf Dumont

I want to share, with you, the words of others, those others who were there in World War I, and who experienced what I have never experienced, and whose pain I will never know, accept, as a listener, as a reader, and as a beneficiary of gifts given, to following generations. 

I want you to hear their words, to be moved by their words, to remember and to give honor to those who died.  Sometimes the pain is quite poignant.  Sometimes, for a moment, we understand why the memories linger on, and on, and on, in the minds of those who lived a whole lifetime in the trenches, and then went out to live another lifetime away from those trenches. 

Sometimes, for a moment, we can understand why faith was lost, or faith was reclaimed or strengthened.  Listen to these words, the words of W. S. S. Lyon (1)  a young man who joined the Royal Scots and was killed by shellfire near Ypres:

                         I tracked a Dead Man Down a Trench

        I tracked a dead man down a trench,  I knew not, he was dead.

       They told me he had gone that way,  And there his foot marks led.

        The trench was long and close and curved,  It seemed without an end:

        And as I threaded each new bay,  I thought to see my friend.

        I went there, stooping to the ground,  For, should I raise my head,

        Death watched to spring; and how should then,  A dead man find the dead?

        At last I saw his back.  He crouched, as still, as still could be,
        And when I called his name aloud,  He did not answer me.

        The floor-way of the trench was wet,  Where he was crouching dead:
        The water of the pool was brown,  And round him it was red.

        I stole up softly where he stayed,  With head hung down all slack,   
        And on his shoulders laid my hands,  And drew him gently back.

        And then, as I had guessed, I saw,  His head, and how the crown -
        I saw then why he crouched so still,  And why his head hung down.

 

Sometimes, for a moment, we can understand why faith was lost, or faith was reclaimed, or faith was essential.

We are all familiar with John McCrae (2) who was a surgeon and who died of pneumonia complicated by meningitis.

He wrote:                                         “IN FLANDERS FIELDS”

                                           In Flanders fields the poppies blow

                                                        Between the crosses row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

 

We are the dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved, and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields.

 

  Take up our quarrel with the foe;

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

 

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

 

We are familiar with these words;  but are we familiar with Edna Jaques’ (3) response written in 1918?  Edna Jaques was a poet from Briercrest in the Moose Jaw district in Saskatchewan.  Here are Edna Jaques’ words:

We have kept faith, ye Flanders' dead,

Sleep well beneath those poppies red,

That mark your place.

The torch your dying hands did throw,

We've held it high before the foe,

And answered bitter blow for blow,

In Flanders' fields.

 

And where your heroes' blood was spilled,

The guns are now forever stilled,

And silent grown.

                        -----------------------------------------------------

September 7, 2008                               Exodus 12: 1-14     Matthew 18:15-20

                                MARKER EVENTS          Rev. Elaine Longland

Who are you?  What shapes your identity?  How do you describe yourself?  When I first began dating as a teen, I can remember one night my mother saying to me, "Remember you are a McDonald".  Whew, what a burden that puts on someone!  She obviously was not very impressed with the fellow I was going to be with that night!

Now, of course, she didn't think that I was in danger of forgetting my name.  She meant that, alone on a date or in the midst of a party, caught up in the youthful exuberance of my friends, I might forget who I was.  I might lose sight of the values I had been taught.

It is sometimes difficult in the midst of the conflicting claims that bombard us today, to remember who we are.  There are all kinds of influences out there, however, that are very ready to tell us.  Many of today's movies, soap operas and songs, try to reduce us to merely sexual beings with fierce drives that need to be satisfied with little consideration for what it means to be responsible.

Advertisers and salespeople would have us believe we are primarily consumers.  Earners and spenders of money, thirsting for the new car, the new home entertainment centre or winter home in the south.  Some would have us be self-cen1red, autonomous, self-made beings.  Look out for number one.  There are no values but the ones you create, they would say.  So, who are you? What have been the marker events in your life that have shaped your interests, your passions, your values?

Our lesson from the Hebrew scriptures this morning tells of the event that shaped the identity of the Hebrew people.  The blood of the lamb placed on their doorposts identified the homes of the Hebrew people, so that when the first-born of all the Egyptians were struck dead, the homes of the Hebrews would be  'passed over'.

This was a marker event.  Who were these people?  They were the people that God had rescued from bondage in Egypt.  That was their identity.  Before they were slaves, not people, but now they were God's people.  God had chosen them for deliverance.  And they were instructed each year to share a meal and tell the story, generation after generation, so that through the centuries their descendants would know who they were: the chosen people of God.

For those of us who call ourselves Christian, baptism is the marker event.  It is our rite of identity.  It is a rite that says; "We are God's own." Baptism is a public declaration of the promise of God: I will be your God.  I choose you.  I will never let you go.

But do we really see and know ourselves as God's own?  Do we claim that as part of our identity of who we are?  A get-to-know-you exercise that I have often used with groups in the Church is to provide sheets of construction paper, magazines, felt markers and glue and have the people create name tags for themselves.  Big name tags that would say something about who they are.  Then we would share around the circle the meaning of the pictures and drawings and what they said about who we are.  I have used this exercise many times and only once did someone draw a cross on their sheet to identify themselves as a Christian, one of God's own.

Why is it that our identity as a Christian does not come to us more spontaneously when we think of who we are?  Are we embarrassed?  Are we afraid of being ridiculed?  Do we take it for granted?  Or is it that we do not really see ourselves as Christians, but rather as people who are trying to be and haven't quite made it?

If our reason is that we are trying to be Christian, but feel we haven't made it, that does sound very reasonable in our self-help, achievement-oriented society.  I can imagine people thinking that Christian faith is a goal that can be achieved by those who are earnestly trying to get right with God.  But, the Good News is that we do not need to "get right with God".  The Good News is that we are right with God.  We do not need to work to get anywhere.  We have arrived.

But, also God's claim on us is not the sort that confines and controls.  We do not become puppets.  We still have our free will to act as we please and reject God's claim on us if we so desire.  And the truth is that we do forget sometimes and follow the call of other gods.

But God has placed within each of us a restless yearning to find the truth to the identity question, "Who am I?"  We experiment following one god after another seeking the answer.  And then one day we are reminded that we are God's own.  We know suddenly again who we are and the restless yearning turns to peace.  Time and again in our lives, we must return to say 'yes' to God's 'yes' to us.  Some would call it being born again, and again, and again.

In Alex Haley's novel, Roots, there is a memorable scene that takes place one night when the slave, Kunta Kinte, drives his master to a ball at a big plantation house.  Kunta Kinte heard the music from inside the house, music from the white folk's dance.  He parked the buggy and settled down to wait out the long night of his master's partying.  While he sat in the buggy, he heard other music coming from the slave's quarters, the little cabins behind the big house.  It was different music music with a different rhythm.  He felt his legs carry him down the path toward those cabins.  There he found a man playing African music, his music which he remembered hearing in Africa as a child-the music he had almost forgotten.  Kunta Kinte found that the man was from his part of Africa.  They talked excitedly in their native language, of home and the things of home.

That night, after returning from the dance, Kunta Kinte went home changed.  He lay upon the floor of his little cabin and wept, weeping in sadness that he had almost forgotten, weeping in joy that he had at last remembered.  The terrifying, degrading experience of slavery had almost obliterated the memory of who he was.  But the music had helped him remember.

The Church is here to remind us, to remind one another, that someone greater than us, has claimed us, and seeks us, with only one purpose in mind- to love us for all eternity.

Remember your baptism and be thankful.  Amen.

                        ---------------------------------------------------------------

Sunday, August 10^th, 2008                            Rev. Arch McCurdy

FROM SLAVERY TO FREEDOM

From Slavery to Freedom - that's the title of my sermon.  Now, that title is broad enough that one could preach all day - or even write a PhD thesis.  That broad and very general title came about, when a month ago, Louise said she needed titles for my sermons in August.  I read the lectionary passage - it was about Joseph's brothers selling him to the Ishmaelites, who were traders on their way to Egypt.  His descendents eventually became slaves of the Egyptians until finally they were delivered from slavery to freedom under the leadership of Moses.

Let's see if we can narrow the focus of that grand but broad title until it meets at least my minimum criteria of a sermon, namely that it attempts to answer two questions:  One, is it relevant to the lives and faith of the listeners, in this particular time and place?  Two, does it say anything helpful about the nature and character of God, as revealed through Jesus?

Now that sounds simple enough.  Well ... it isn't!  It isn't because what is good news to some listeners is anything but good news to others.  Some may find it enlightening and freeing, while others will think it's not only wrong, it's downright heresy.

When I read Marcus Borg, that to have our Christian faith make sense in the twenty-first century, I find we need to understand two fundamentals:  One, that religion is a human construct;  Two, the Bible was not dictated by God, but written by humans - and humans who had their own particular biases as well as their particular experiences of God.  I found that particularly helpful.  It is like reading the Bible through a whole new lens.

On the other hand, I am given pause to ponder when I read The Pagan Christ written by our Canadian theologian, Tom Harper, where he states his position, and I quote:  "There is a hide and seek quality to the profound question raised by all of our explorations thus far: in the light of everything we have examined ... can we say with any authority that Jesus of Nazareth actually existed, as an historical person?  I have very grave doubts that we can." (Thomas Allen Publishers, 2004 - p158)

But to be fair to Harper he does go on to maintain, that the teachings ascribed to Jesus are of profound importance.  Even though Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are not exact history, yet they convey profound truths "which are fresh grounds for both faith and hope". (p154)

Now we will turn our attention to the question of slavery.  We can assert that thank goodness we are free from slavery.  We live in a country where we have freedom of the press, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, freedom from oppression.  We are not slaves.  We are free.  In my experience, nothing could be further from the truth.

There is hardly a day passes when we are not free to do as we would like.  Every person in a marriage or a loving relationship makes concessions to the needs or wants of the loved one.  When my wife and I were first married, we were free on a moment's impulse to go to a movie or a ball game or a concert.

When we became parents that kind of freedom disappeared.  The needs of the children became our priority.  When money was needed for their education, we were slaves to the ever present question "Can we afford it"?  We drove a second hand car.

But there is another kind of slavery which is far more important.  We all are slaves of the consumerism of our society.  The persuaders are always in every medium in our homes, our cars, our places of work.  They want us to be happy - there is a full page ad in the Toronto Star in which the headline exclaims:  "STOP WAITING.  START LAUGHING.  THE FASTEST AND MOST RELIABLE, PERIOD. - Rogers Hi-Speed Internet for as low as $19.95 a month" and then in very small print, "Plus other fees."  This is just one of thousands of such ads which assault our ears every day.  And we end up buying things which we cannot afford - things that we don't even need!

Recently I was told by a somewhat irate husband that his wife went to an auction - she wasn't going to buy anything - just wanted to take it in.  Do you know what she came home with?  A fifty year old wooden butter churn, an ancient tin washboard like my mother used, and an old kerosene oil burning lamp!!  The husband didn't care about the butter churn - he said it was a waste of money.  People get neurotic about money.

The other day I was called to the hospital - a woman was very distraught - had chest pains.  The doctor could find nothing wrong.  Perhaps it was grief - her sister died a few weeks ago.  I sat down and had a conversation with her.  Her problem wasn't her heart - and not primarily about her sister's death ... it was about money.  She wanted to live long enough to get the inherited money. 

She had on her medical chart DNR - Do Not Resuscitate.  She wanted the order removed - she wanted to live long enough to be sure she got her money!  Can you believe it?  It was making her sick.  It was causing her pain.  She had forgotten that Jesus said, "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.  I do not give to you as the world gives.  Do not let you hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid." (John 14:27)

I have new insight into that line "I do not give to you as the world gives."  It comes from an American Sociologist, Tony Campolo.  He is better known as an evangelist.  He quoted a study on the effectiveness of some practices of the social scientists

If you are emotionally messed up and you go to a psychoanalyst, there is a 44% probability that you will be cured in a year;

If you go to a psychotherapist, there is a 53% probability that you will be cured in a year;

If you go to a psychiatrist, there is a 61% probability that you will be cured in a year;

If you go to nobody, there is a 73% probability that you will be cured in a year.

I agree with Campolo - I find that scary!!

The problem is that some social scientists leave out a prerequisite of wholeness - that we human beings consist of BODY, MIND AND SPIRIT.  If you scratch deep enough there is a strong likelihood that the root issue of people's problems is spiritual.

I believe that Jesus was a real person - and I believe him when he said to the sick who came to him - "your faith has made you whole". (Matt.9:22)  When the leper came to Jesus and he healed him, it doesn't say he was magically healed, but rather he said, "Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well". (Luke 17:19)  I don't mean that, to be an endorsement of so called "faith healers".

In recent years there have been an increasing number of books being written on the interrelationship of Body, Mind and Spirit.  Two of the earlier ones were written about 20 years ago by a doctor, Bernie S. Siegel: Love, Medicine and Miracles, and Peace, Love and Healing.

He writes about case after case, how important was the patient's state of mind in the healing process.  In his introduction to his latest book he writes:  "Those who have learned to take on the challenge of their illness and share their responsibility for their treatment, have chosen the path that leads to peace of mind, and healing on a spiritual level".   (Peace, Love and Healing -  introduction p3.)  He adds: "Love and peace of mind do protect us". (p. 2)

Peace of mind is possible when we are free from those things in our society which enslave us.

Above the door of Victoria College - University of Toronto we read these words:

THE TRUTH SHALL MAKE YOU FREE        (John 8: 32)

It is not money that will make you free;

It is not position and power that will make you free;

It is not possessions that will make you free;

It is not intelligence that will make you free;

It is only when we make our prioritv commitment to the life and teachings of Jesus that we will be truly free.       

Amen.

                        --------------------------------------------------------------

June 29th, 2008    “Reflections from the Year:   Grasshopper and Sensei” 

           (beginning with Alf)   God said to Abram:

“Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you.   I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.  I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed."[1]

Abram went forth faithfully, in God’s name.  And, as he did, his name was changed to Abraham.  Abraham waited for God’s promise.  He waited and waited and waited and waited.  It did not seem that God’s promise was going to be fulfilled:  Where were the offspring that would create a new nation, of which he would be the father?  Where was even one child?

Christine, like Abraham, you have received a call.  God spoke to you.  And you, like Abraham, have received a promise from God.  You have been in training the whole of your life.  In this year, you have received a few more teachings that will help you fulfill your calling:  We heard about your call when you first came here, to St. John’s, and we sought to give you some training that would help fulfill that call.  What have you learned this year that will help you in ministry?

Christine’s response:

We hear again and again in scripture about people who left their homes and ventured into new territories.  One of the many things I love so much about the bible is that it shows us how human God knows us to be.   In the text we can hear the confusion, the fear… even the anger… that Abraham and Sarah are feeling.  They are far from perfect, aren’t they, and yet they are held up as examples of what faithful people look like.  And when you look closely, they look just like you and me, don’t they…

I certainly was feeling painfully human at the outset of this internship.  I was more than a little nervous… God was sending me into a new land and I did not know what to expect…  for the first time I was going to be away from my husband and children for intervals of a time and that prospect filled me with anxiety…  But I was warmly welcomed here in the new land (called “Alliston”) and this church community has nurtured and supported me during this year.

When I came to St. John’s – I had my learning goals set – a list of “to dos” I needed to get done, so that I could move on to the next step toward ministry.  I was eager to get cracking, so that I could start checking off the items on my list --  Preaching: Check --  Children’s Time: Check --  Pastoral counseling: Check --  Community Outreach: Check --  And then I added a few…   --  Proper way of wearing the robe: Check --  Correct height of stool to use so that I could see over the pulpit: Check.

   And then St. John’s added a couple, including how to properly flip a potato pancake, which took a little while for Mike and I to perfect, but I’m proud to say that we are now fairly decent pancake flippers!

I am grateful for the knowledge and experience I have gained these areas.  I have learned to do a great many things during my time here at St. John’s.

       But what I didn’t understand then, is that God sent me here, to learn how to “be” rather than just “do”.  And God called this congregation to be my teachers in this process of education.  And so, I learned to be in relationship with a congregation, how to love and be loved.  And of course, this teaching could only happen within a community that was able and willing to invite an intern into the family.

(Alf)  Well, Christine, Abraham and Sarah’s story continues:  Abraham and his wife Sarah did some of their own family planning, either because they were tired of waiting, or they thought that maybe God wanted them to be creative a find another way in which the plan could be fulfilled. 

They, in the tradition of their ancestors, took things into their own hands, and through Hagar the maidservant, ‘got’ for themselves ... a son of the inheritance … then God laughed at their impatience and, later, gave them their own son Isaac.

Christine, do you ever get impatient waiting for God to give you the directions you need for training and for ministry?

Christine’s response:

Well, I guess it’s no secret that I can be a little impatient.  There have been some great opportunities this year to improve my skills in that area… and I am grateful for them.

But I can’t help but think about Christmas eve.  What a great night that was, wasn’t it – I really loved all the Christmas services we had this year.  And Christmas Eve was particularly special for me and my family, because we were shown such generous hospitality by the Hewson family.  Louise not only invited us to sleep over so that Mike and the kids and I could be together Christmas morning, but Louise made us the most wonderful Christmas Eve dinner, which we all enjoyed – in between the two Christmas eve services.

But at supper, I was anxious to return to church, because I wanted to get on with preparations for the late service.  So I headed back to the church right after dinner.  Once I was in my office, I remembered that I had left something in the car.  Well, I don’t know if you can recall, but it was very cold that night.  And as I rushed out to the parking lot – without a coat, of course, I forgot my keys – actually I remembered that I didn’t have them at the same moment as the front door closed behind me.

Well, I had some time to think – and even though my teeth were chattering, I soon realized I had missed something important because of my impatience. 

God was calling me to be present with my community during this holy time in the church calendar.  And in a very real way, I had chosen to spend some of that sacred time, cold and lonely, simply because I was too impatient to take the time to hear God’s instructions.  As often is the case, I thought I knew better than God what I should be doing.  I also often feel that my timetable is a little more efficient than God’s…

It took me a while, but I finally remembered that the back door was probably unlocked.  And I tiptoed through the snow in my high heels and eventually made it back into the warm church.  And I tell you - I spent more than a few minutes thinking about how our plans – our assessment of what we need to be doing  - sometimes is a direct result of our impatience.  We often feel that doing something – anything - is better than waiting.  And so we perpetually make to-do lists.

I have heard it said that whenever we begin to make a plan, God starts to laugh.  The account of Abraham, Sarah, Hagar, Isaac and Ishmael beautifully illustrates this point.  And there is much sadness and pain in this story.  Each of these individuals becomes the victim of plan-making at one point or another.  But God is gracious to every figure in this story, and that is one of the central lessons of this passage, God’s love prevails.  No matter what we do, or don’t do, or plan to do, or fail to do – God loves is just as we are… 

(Alf)  Now let us pick up the story, today, where Abraham heard God’s promise and felt fulfilled and walked with patience again, until that is, God asked him to do something incredible with his son Isaac: offer him to God on the altar.

Now, Abraham was willing to offer or dedicate his son to God’s service, in any other way, but this seemed too great a sacrifice and anyway, how would God’s will for a new nation be born out of the death of hope, the hope placed in their only son? 

Christine have you ever felt that you received clear guidance, and then you had doubts and wondered whether you had interpreted God’s call or God’s message to you properly or truly?  Did you ever have doubts about what you were to do in service to God?

Christine’s response:

This passage is one of the most difficult parts of the bible for us to understand, isn’t it?  Theologians, ministers, scholars, congregants - everyone finds this text troubling.

As a mother I have long wondered how Sarah must have felt.  I find it very interesting that the next time we hear about her, we’re told Sarah has died.  My Professor of Old Testament, a mother herself, once remarked that while there is no textual evidence to support her theory -  she really wonders if Sarah died from the shock of it all.  I can just imagine the discussion Sarah and Abraham had about this little incident…

I think, too, about how Abraham must have felt during that journey with his son…  I can imagine that he alternated between certainty and self-doubt, all the while feeling grief for the impending loss of his son…  and then – out of the blue – he is saved.  Can you imagine, the pure unrestrained joy that washed over Abraham when God told him Isaac would live… and then the journey back for Abraham and Isaac, back to a much less dramatic time – back to everyday life…

This story is the story of each of our lives, isn’t it?  We have times of great grief and great joy and then the in between times.  And I am no exception to this.  There have been a few – a handful – of times, when I have known without a doubt what God was saying.  When I found out I was to be a mother for example or the day that my church told me they had discerned that I should become a minister…

But then there is life waiting to be lived after those flashes of clarity – isn’t there?  Because except for those brief moments of certainty, life is about living with doubt.  We are created to be thinking, discerning individuals with the great gift of free will:  and this means there will always be doubt.

(Alf)  Well, the story continues, as does yours.  Having learned his lesson from the previous experience, Abraham trusted in God, that this was the right thing to do:  that it was right to sacrifice his son at that moment.

Christine, how is your story like Abraham’s, that it seemed right, to do what God was guiding you to do?

Christine’s response:

This passage is immensely complex, and it contains many teachings within it.  This is also the text that ties Christians, Jews and Muslims together in one foundational story.  And just that fact alone shows us the diversity of meanings that can be found by meditating on this part of Genesis.

For Christians, one of the gifts of this passage is that it gives us some human insight as to how God must have felt giving God’s only son to world, and ultimately to death.

Another lesson is more about how difficult it is to truly hear God’s will for us.  But that we can do it… if we trust that God wants us to hear God’s voice.  We are a conflicted people, we live in a culture of fear and anxiety so it necessarily follows that we have a hard time sorting out what it is that we should be doing at any given time.

For me, it is helpful to return to the dichotomy between being and doing.  In this text we see Abraham being a faithful person – trying his best to be a good father, to be a good servant of the Lord, to be a good leader.  And it is in the “being” rather than the “doing” where we can be more certain about what is “right”... for us at any given time.

Through these past five years I have been journeying toward Ordination, I have learned more about how I should “be", than what I should “do”…  although believe me, I have a lot more to learn about both… 

(Alf)  As Abraham was about to sacrifice his only son to God, God intervened and provided a ram, caught in the bushes.  God altered the worship service (?)

Christine, how did God communicate to you over this year? 

What was “the ram caught in the bushes for you”…  that God gave you…what was the new insight?  AND

What the messages do you want to give to us that would help us more effectively minister and worship together?

  What could we do differently here at St. John’s?  What is the “ram caught in the bushes for us?”

Christine’s response:

Abraham is so intent on carrying out the word of God, as he hears it, that he does not see the great gift that God is preparing for him.  Because, I would imagine, that there was nothing more beautiful or perfect that Abraham could have found in those bushes.  As he gazed at the horror of the moment…he must have wondered about other possibilities…

 well, I suspect that there is a whole flock of rams and a few ewes too – out there waiting for me.  Like many of my fellow interns, I think that I came into this year looking to accumulate more and more knowledge – like we did during our first two years in school.

For example – I once had the pleasure of writing an entire essay on the meaning of hospitality in the Old and New Testaments.  I studied the Greek and the Hebrew words as well as looking into the shades of meaning found in the Aramaic dialect.  I delved deep into the socio-economic-historical-literary-psychological data required in order to fully appreciate the cultural norms against which the concept of hospitality in the near-middle east emerged…

But I learned what hospitality meant here, at St. John’s – and just in case I didn’t get it the first time – I was given the marvelous opportunity to learn again and again…  and the same goes for faith, and love and charity… as you all permitted me the honour of walking with you this year – in the joys and the sorrows that mark life … the ups and downs and ordinariness of the days in between – just like Abraham and Sarah…

It has been such a privilege to be a part of this community this year, I cannot believe how blessed I was to be brought here.  The strengths and gifts that live in this congregation are absolutely unbelievable.  And I guess that’s what I would say to you. 

I would challenge you as a congregation to take the time to look at yourselves and see yourselves as God does.  That really, was Sarah and Abraham’s challenge, wasn’t it?  They had such a hard time seeing themselves as God saw them.  We see from how they reacted to the incredible events in this story, that really – they couldn’t picture themselves carrying on the story of God’s children … of being integral participants in the ongoing history  God’s good creation.

I have no doubt that God sees a congregation continually striving to live out it’s call.  You are, we are, the body of Christ – born to hear the will of God, speaking to us in the voice of Jesus Christ through the actions of the Holy Spirit.  And we do this in relationship with one another.  And that is what is so wonderful about St. John’s – this is community which reflects diversity in its individuals yet acts with intention, grace and the commitment of heart and mind.

You have got it going on …  and you are already sharing so much with the community … and you are continually welcoming new people into the family … you are doing so much – so much good.

But you know what they say… no good deed goes unpunished… Like Abraham and Sarah who lived faithfully, and so God asked even more of them… this ever changing community of Alliston needs you. 

It has always needed St. John’s…  and it always will.  Not just for material help, which I have seen is sorely needed here, but also to continue stand as beacon of welcome… a place for those in the community to receive hospitality, but also to have the chance to learn about it, along with  grace, love, hope and charity – all the things that I have learned here.

And I know also, that God wants us to celebrate the goodness of creation and the goodness of our participation in that creation.  And I would pray that this community would allow itself the time to celebrate…  that St. John’s sits back – once in a while, and revels in the pure joy of being in relationship with one another and with God. 

(Alf)  Thanks be to God, Christine, for your ministry among us!

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 June 22nd, 2008           "Finding a Way Out of No Way"               Rev. Elaine Longland

 I really enjoy Old Testament stories like the one we heard this morning (Genesis 21: 8 - 21) The people in them are so human: filled with jealousy, and anger, and selfishness, just as we are sometimes.

I want to give you a little background for this lesson that Joyce read for us.  Sarah had reached her senior years and still had no children.  To have an heir in that culture was seen to be essential, so she persuaded her husband Abraham to have a child through her Egyptian slave girl, Hagar.  Abraham agreed and the slave girl probably didn't have much to say about it.  Soon a child was on the way.  Apparently surrogate pregnancies go way back!

Now we can predict trouble coming, can't we?  As Sarah saw it, Hagar began to flounce around the house rubbing it in that she was pregnant and Sarah was not.  Her plan wasn't going so well, so Sarah convinced Abraham to send Hagar away.  In no time Hagar was out on the street.

It wasn't long before an angel found her and told her that God wanted her to name her baby Ishmael and that he would be the first of a multitude of descendants.  The angel also persuaded Hagar to return to her mistress and try to patch things up.  Hagar returned and apparently all was forgiven.  A few months later Ishmael was born.

But her troubles weren't over.  To everyone's surprise, Sarah became pregnant even at her advanced age and gave birth to Isaac, who God also promised would be the father of a great nation.  Jealousy and greed again consumed Sarah and she nagged Abraham into driving Hagar and Ishmael out of the house permanently.  Sarah didn't want anyone competing for her son's inheritance.  Abraham gave them some bread and water and sent Hagar and Ishmael on their way.

When they reached Beersheba, their water ran out.  Hagar gave up her son for dead and sat down and wept.  We can just imagine all that Hagar is experiencing.  She is alone without the protection of a man which was so important in that culture.  She is homeless.  She is out of food and water.  Her son is dying and there is absolutely nothing that she can do about it.  Hopelessness consumes her.

We have all experienced this depth of hopelessness at one time or another. We feel alone, afraid, desperate. There seems to be no way out.

For my message title this morning, I have drawn on a phrase used by Barack Obama in his A More Perfect Union speech on racism that drew such acclaim when he delivered it in late March.

In a country where racism is still alive, Obama said the remarkable thing was not how many African-Americans had failed in the face of discrimination, but how many had been able to 'make a way out of no way'.  And that's what hopelessness feels like, doesn't it?  That there's no way out.  But the good news is that there is always a way out, and the key to finding a way out of no way, may be something that never occurred to us.

Hagar is convinced she and her son will die in the vast, desert wilderness.  She closes her ears and her eyes so she can not hear or see her son's suffering.  But God opens her eyes and there is a well.  Who would ever expect to find a well there in the middle of nowhere!  God is full of surprises.

A priest was sitting at his desk working when he became aware of a commotion in the street.  People were running in panic.  He learned from a passer-by that the dam had burst, the river was rising and people were being evacuated.

The priest saw the water flooding the street and decided not to flee like the rest, but to trust God to save him.  When the water reached his window ledge, a boat full of people came by.  "Jump in, Father," they shouted.  "Alas no, my children," said the priest, "I will trust in God to save me."  The priest did climb to the roof, however, and when people came by, urging the priest to join them, again he refused.

This time he climbed to the top of the belfry.  When the water was up to his knees, an officer in a motor boat was sent to rescue him.  "No thank you officer," said the priest with a calm smile.  "I trust in God, you see, and God will never let me down."

The priest drowned and went to heaven and the first thing he did was complain to God.  "I trusted you!  Why did you do nothing to save me?"  "Well, said God, "I did send three boats, you know."

For decades, the African-American people in the United States have struggled to gain the acceptance and respect of the population at large.  Who would ever have dreamed that this young Junior Senator from Illinois would be nominated to make a run for the White House and as a result, be the boat that would bring hope to so many people who are seeking to find a way out of no way.

I'll risk sharing a very personal story with you of a difficult time in my life.  I'm sure some of you have experienced the frustration of parenting teens who seem determined to make unfortunate choices.  During that time, I was afraid.  I felt like an utter failure as a parent.  I felt completely helpless.  I just wanted to hide.  It felt like there was no way out.

One morning, this was before I was a minister, a woman who attended the same church we did, called and asked me to pray with her on the phone.  I'm not sure why she called me.  Our only connection was that we had attended some Bible studies together.  Inside I groaned - because I felt I did not have the emotional or spiritual strength to help her.

As she told me of her crisis however, I found I was able to let go of my own, and was able to pray with her.  Oh, my world didn't become perfect over night, but some of my confidence returned which helped me to cope more effectively with the stresses in my own life.  It never occurred to me that that phone call would be the boat that would set me back on the road to hope.

On the National one night recently, I saw the story of a Montreal dentist who is helping youth in a disadvantaged area of the city find a way out of no way through music.  His dream as a young person was to be a rock star.  When he finished high school, his parents allowed him to go to New York City to try to make it big.  After a year he gave it up and returned home.  But he still has the music bug.  He has built a sound studio and is making it available to at-risk youth.  One group called the Surf Sisters are getting some gigs in the city.  Because of this middle-aged, middle­class, white man's support and mentorship, they are finding their way out of no way. 

Just imagine how our lives change when we open our eyes and ears in anticipation of the boats that God is sending to help us get back on the road to hope.  Who will it be?  What will it be?  And just imagine how the lives of others might change as we seek to be vehicles of hope for those around us.

In God's love there are no 'dead ends' leading only to hopelessness.  Let us be open to the surprising roads to hope that God may be offering to us and through us.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

 

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          June 1st, 2008       ---     Rev. Lorne O'Neill, Minister Emeritus

                                        "Be Right With God"

    In our first Scripture reading today, we heard Paul writing to the small congregation of Christians in Rome.  "I have complete confidence in the gospel", he wrote, "It is God's power to save all who believe, first the Jews and also the Gentiles.  For the gospel reveals how God puts people right with Himself."

    He goes on to point out that we do not please God and become part of His family by the good things we do; rather, we do good things because we are part of God's family, by faith.

    And ordinarily that is what I would preach on today.  I would stress the personal factor, that you and I need to be surrendered to Jesus, born again, transformed.  But over the last few weeks, as I pondered the text, it came to me that there was one small part of this text that I needed to stress: the idea that the whole world needs to be right with God.  I look at it this way:

    I believe that God created this world to operate by certain natural laws.  Trees absorb Carbon dioxide, and release Oxygen, without which we would die.  Their roots hold the soil in place on hillsides, their leaves cool the air in the summer.  Beside rivers they keep the water cool so the fish can flourish.

    The sun warms our earth, and the polar ice-caps reflect the excess heat off into space so our temperature remains liveable.  The oceans teem with fish; and the fertile soil, with the sun and rain, produce enough food for all.  The seasons follow one another in beautiful order.  The law of gravity means that life is dependable, that you won't be flying off your pews and hitting the ceiling anytime soon.

    No wonder the early writers of the Bible could imagine God looking at this amazing world that He had made, and saying, "Behold, it is very good."  But what happens when we go against God's natural laws?

    When a logging company clear-cuts the hillsides of trees, the rain washes the top-soil down into the rivers, destroying fish habitat, and both the hillside and the fishing industry are destroyed.  Because of our emissions from burning fossil fuels, heat is trapped here, instead of escaping, and the ice-caps begin to melt, making things worse.  Low-lying areas may be flooded.  And we pollute the earth's supply of water and air which we all need.    

    We need to work with nature, not against it.  Perhaps you remember a story I told before, of a man who was a member of one of my churches in Saskatchewan.  Don was a farmer, and had been brought up on the family farm that his parents and, I think, his grandparents had worked.  Don told me about the wonderful barn they had on the farm, a really great structure.  It had one fault; it had been built in a low spot, and every Spring, when the snow melted and the Spring rains came, the barn was flooded.  Everything had to be moved out, and when the flood was over, they had to clean out the muck and mire that had accumulated.

    The Second World War came along, and Don enlisted in the army and was sent overseas, where he kept in touch with his parents by mail.  One day he received the bad news that there had been a fire on the farm, the barn was destroyed, and they would have to build a new one.  Don fought his way up through the boot of Italy, and then the war was over, Don was sent home and discharged.  There was a glad reunion, and he said, "I went out to have a look at the new barn, and guess where they had built it?"

    Water still runs down-hill.  It's called gravity, folks, and even when we build a barn, we need to work with the laws of God.  E. Stanley Jones used to say that we can jump off a cliff, but we will not break the law of gravity, we will be broken by it.  And Jesus told us that if we build our house on sand instead of on a solid foundation, it will surely crumble when the storms arise.

    But we're beginning to catch on to this, aren't we?  People buying cars that sip gas, instead of guzzling it; wind farms and solar power coming into their own; forestry companies cutting trees selectively, and planting more to make up for the ones they have cut down; school classes going out and cleaning up our creeks and rivers; the stocking of rivers with fish in hopes of restoring what used to be.  It's building our house on rock instead of on sand.  It looks as though we are starting to get right with God's creation.  Oh, I hope so!

    I also believe that God created this world to operate by certain moral laws, Jesus lays them out for us:

    - love your neighbour as yourself;

       - love your enemies; bless those who curse you, and pray for those who abuse you,

       - treat others as you would have them treat you;

        - turn the other cheek (rather than seek revenge and get into a cycle of violence);

        - go the second mile, doing more than you have to, out of the goodness of your heart.

    These are so simple, and what a wonderful world we have when people live by them.  In other words, when people are right with God.  But what happens when we go against those moral laws?  It's like gravity; we don't break them; we break ourselves on them,

    The United States has supported Israel as it has prospered, and ignored the plight of the Palestinians, who lost their homes and land, and are kept in poverty and subjugation.  What is the result?  The horrible disaster of 9/11, when three thousand innocent people were killed in the destruction of the World Trade Centre.  The Rev. Jeremiah Wright said that 9/11 was the chickens coming home to roost.

    And what was the result of 9/11?  Eleven of the hijackers were from Saudi Arabia, and Osama bin Laden was in Afghanistan, so George Bush started a war against Iraq.  And what is the result of the Iraq war?  The loss of thousands of Iraqi lives, the recruitment of more terrorists, and 300,000 American veterans suffering post-traumatic stress disorders.  Last August the American forces set up a suicide hot-line for its troops, and have already fielded 37,000 calls, and there are 1,000 attempted suicides every month by American veterans.

    That says to me that we were not created to kill people.  I think God must weep when He sees what we do to ourselves and to one another.

    Now, what is Paul's answer to the anguish of the world.  "For the good news reveals how God puts people right with Himself."  What is the good news?

    - that God is our heavenly Father who loves us;

    - that in Jesus, God has come to show us a new way to live, and bring us back into his family.

    - and that when we let Jesus be Lord, God's Spirit will be alive in us to make us new people,

building a new society, and a new world.

    So it begins with you and me, and with the people we vote for to lead us in government.

    I believe we are beginning to see this. Read the paper and watch TV, and you see amazing things happening.  Whole organizations are working to save the rain forests that provide oxygen for the whole planet.  We have organizations like World Vision, and The Plan adopting families and villages in the third world.  We have Marc and Craig Kielburger working with Oprah Winftey to save children from factory work and build a hundred schools for them, so they have a decent chance at life.  We have groups like Rotary working to defeat smallpox and polio, providing beds for a hospital in Africa, and rebuilding a village destroyed by the Tsunami.  We have multimillionaires like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet giving hundreds of millions of dollars to make a better world.

    And it doesn't matter whether people share our faith or some other, or whether they believe in God or not.  What matters is that God can now believe in us!  He must smile when He sees some of the good things we are doing!

    Over sixty years ago, after the 2^nd World War, a journalist, Drew Pearson, wrote, "Maybe we will wake up to the futility of old-fashioned diplomacy and the hopelessness of big armies, and put our faith in friendship. In other words, everything else having failed, we might finally come around to practising the Sermon on the Mount."

Oh, I hope so!

"For the good news reveals how God puts people right with Himself."

                              --------------------------------------------

May 25th, 2008     "Even More Notes from the Lodge"    Christine Smaller

          Imagine:  someone asks you to do something that surprises you.  Not because it is a bad thing – but because it is completely foreign to whom you are.  Something you never thought you would ever do – ever – in your entire life.  

What do you do?  What do you say?  Has this ever happened to you?  Someone says to you – hey why don’t you....  do this – or how about considering that - and you are so flabbergasted that you can’t even respond at first. 

I remember feeling this way few years ago when I was visiting friends in Portugal.  One fine evening the long wooden dinner table was brought out into the fragrant garden by the men of the family, the several generations of women of the household lovingly set the table and decorated it with colourful flowers – all in my honour.  And then the food started coming – all of it looked delicious – the fish, the vegetables, the salads and even a steaming tureen of stew.

          Mmmm – this looks fabulous, I said staring down at the bowl – “what’s in it”?  This is cocho, I was told...  pig entrails stewed in pig’s blood.  A speciality.  “Oh”, I said.

I looked at my hosts and back to the stew and then to my hosts again.  I loved these people – trusted them – knew they would never ask me to do anything that would hurt me.  I picked up my spoon, dipped it in the bowl and brought it to my lips.  I won’t lie – there was a second of hesitation, but I opened my mouth and ate the stew.  “Oh, this is wonderful”, I said – and it was.

          Jesus asked his followers to do much more than just eat strange food, didn’t he?  He asked them to do something shocking, really…  He asked them to leave their lives behind and follow him.  

          When Jesus stood on the shore and called out to Peter and Andrew he said: “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men[i]” – can you imagine what those two men must have thought?  They must have been shocked – here is this man they have never seen before, asking them to leave all everything behind.  Their fathers were fisherman, their grandfathers had been fishermen – they would have expected that their sons would become fishermen…  this was their world – their life – what they understood.

          But  - in an instant - these men knew deep in their core that they loved and trusted Jesus.  They somehow knew that it was good and right to put down their nets and follow the man whom they would soon call “master”.  They somehow understood that Jesus would never do anything to harm them – although the journey might be difficult and frightening and turn out differently that they had hoped. 

          They traveled along with Jesus – each morning uncertain about where they would sleep that night, or whether they would eat that day. But these concerns did not change the fact that they had decided to serve God.  It is not that these very human men weren’t worried – we know that they were.  But they had made a choice that was not swayed by any hardship – or joy - that came after. 

 In today’s gospel reading, Jesus is explaining about this choice to those people who have gathered around to listen to him.  People just like you and me.  He makes it clear -  “No one can serve two masters: for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other.  You cannot serve God and wealth”.  You cannot serve God and Mammon. 

This passage makes us a little uncomfortable – doesn’t it?  Well, friends, there are no two ways about it – this scripture clearly states that we choose our life giving God or we choose the opposite.  It does not matter what our translation is, what our denominational interpretation is, or even what our particular theological position is – the Bible says we cannot serve God and Mammon.

And we all want to serve God – right? Of course we do.  But it is different for us, isn’t it?…  It is harder for us than for those gathered at Jesus’ feet all those centuries ago - because they got to hear it right from Jesus’ mouth…  they could see Him – touch him…  And yet Jesus calls out to us with the same words – through the witness of scripture – Jesus asks us the same questions…  Do we choose God, or not?  Do we choose to live in the light of Jesus Christ or not? 

In order to stay in that light, we need to help one another strengthen our love and trust for God.  And this “help” comes in as many different ways as there are people on this earth.  Often we do not even know when we have done something that has made a difference in another person’s faith.  And of course – our own personal relationship with God is of utmost importance.   And here too – we know that each relationship is unique – none like any other.

Some of us experience God in ways that are amazingly clear and resonate ever after.  Some of us feel God’s presence in the quiet and calm silences of our lives.  But most of us meet God in our relationships with other people.  And it is through other people – often – that we are asked to do something strange and new.  Sometimes, we are led on a journey toward God because when we are asked to do something we have never thought of doing before… 

Now,  we are called to discern carefully, when we are asked to do something new.  We must be careful – but we can gain so much if we are open to hearing God’s words spoken through our neighbour.  We can serve God – by making ourselves vulnerable to new experiences. 

Because, there is only one “master” – but we can all help one another move toward our master….  We can be loving and trustworthy and encourage others in their faith journey.  And we can be humble and know that another person’s journey won’t look like ours – but understand that by sharing the path we enrich one another.

 So now imagine someone has asked you to go to a place you have never been before...  to do something that is not only outside your experience but something that you never thought you would do...  You only know that you are going to enter an enclosed, hot, dark place and that you will not know what happens in there until you experience it for yourself.  What do you do?  What do you say?

Well, you need to discern…  Ask yourself some questions…  Who is it that has invited you?  Does it matter if they are loving and trustworthy?  Does it matter that you know they would never do anything to cause you harm, even though they might challenge and push you?  Is this something that might help me serve God – help me come closer to God?

If the answer is yes, then you choose to say “yes – here I am”  So you have made the choice.  But then, of course, the worry sets in.  But what will it be like?  Will I be frightened?  What will I wear?  Will I be thirsty?  Will I get hungry – what if there is no food? 

I suppose you can guess – this happened to me not too long ago.  You see - I was scared to go to the sweat lodge and I obsessed just a little about the details. 

And I think that maybe the people Jesus was addressing felt a little like this too.  They wanted to choose to serve God – but they were scared.  “What will we eat?” they asked – and “What will we drink” – and “What will we wear” – they wanted to know all the details… before really committing.

Look, Jesus says to them – don’t worry about these things at the expense of living your life.  You are confusing the big question – the important decision – with the minor details.  Jesus is not negating their concerns – after all, he tells them – “indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things, but strive first for the Kingdom of God and his righteousness.”[ii]

          So there I was – wearing a long skirt and a tank top, having been fed and watered - I followed – under the darkening sky – a group of others entering into the unknown for the first time.  We walked down a frozen dirt path…  prepared and then entered the sweat lodge…  Some time later, we all emerged into the crisp night air and walked back along the same path…

          The lodge has stayed with me…  the experience led me to a deeper understanding of what it means for me to serve God – to make that choice every day – to let it ring in my heart like the loudest sweetest bell.  I am so grateful for that experience. 

          Now – as many of you know, I am all about scripture.  Tediously so – I am told sometimes.  I confess I stand before you here as someone who believes that we encounter the Risen Christ through our ancient sacred texts.  But I am also the first to admit that God speaks to us through popular culture too….  So I’d like to leave you with the immortal worlds of Bob Dylan – from his song, Gotta Serve Somebody:

You may be a preacher with your spiritual pride,
You may be a city councilman taking bribes on the side,
You may be an ambassador to England or France,
You may like to gamble, you might like to dance,
You may be the heavyweight champion of the world,
You may be a socialite with a long string of pearls

But you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You're gonna have to serve somebody,
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you're gonna have to serve somebody.

And folks – isn’t that the gospel truth? 

Amen

                ______________________________________________

August 12th, 2007                                 Rev. Arch McCurdy

Isaiah 1:1, 10-20   Psalm 50:1-8,22,23   Hebrews 11: 1-3,8-16

                            A Sacrifice Acceptable to God

What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? Isaiah 1: 11

Nothing gives us a clearer picture of the contrasts that confront us in this world than two headlines of the Thursday, August 9 edition of the TORONTO STAR.

The major headline was 'Sickening' theft probed.

The story goes on to tell of a public servant who worked in the provincial office of the Public Guardian and Trustee - a branch of the government which helped the mentally handicapped - had apparently misappropriated "a significant amount of funds".

Although the person had worked there since 1995, the story has the appearance that the lure of money finally got to this person that resulted in her absconding money from those people of our community who are incapable of handling their own affairs.

It is a reminder that greed in our society is the ever present temptation from which few of us escape. 

I want to share with you an incident in my own life in which greed was a temptation from which I did not escape.

When I arrived at the manse on Christian Island last February, there was no communication with the outside world.  There was no computer, no radio, no TV and the phone wasn't hooked up.

So I purchased a television set and an Express View satellite dish. The clerk, ­ - excuse me - the associate, assured me that if I phoned a specific number the company would send a technician to install the satellite dish.

I phoned the number and a friendly voice said that of course they would install the dish. I advised her that she should tell the technician that I was on Christian Island, and that he would have to come across on a ferry.

After a momentary hesitation she informed me that they did not install the "dish" on Christian Island.  That bugged me a bit so I said, "Is that how Bell discriminates against aboriginal people?"

Dead silence!!

Then the technician said, "just a minute" and left the phone.

On returning to the phone he said,  "If you can find a technician on the Island who can hook up the satellite, we will credit your account for $99.00."

"Well", I thought to myself, "that's a pretty good offer, and I can handle saving $99.00".  I even thanked him and hung up.  I even felt a little proud of myself for making an easy $99.00 for a two-minute phone call.

But after I hung up the phone I began to ask myself, "What's going on here?"  "What happened to my verbal protest about discrimination?"

What happened was that I dropped my protest like a hot potato -(no connection to the Festival!)

An uncomfortable feeling suddenly grew within me, as I realized that the company had bought my silence for, what would be for Bell, a measly $99.00.  So, my feeling of pride for making an easy $99.00, turned to shame for being so easily bought off.

In a word: Greed had closed up my eyes to injustice.

I had not originally planned to tell you this story about my greed.  Like everyone else, I always like to put my best foot forward!

Then I read the passage from Isaiah.  Let's take a closer look.  Isaiah has had a vision.  From this vision he speaks:  Isaiah begins with the words of verse 2:

Hear, O heavens, and listen, O Earth; For the Lord has spoken"

Then he really goes for the people - almost like fire and brimstone:

 Ah, sinful nation, people laden with iniquity,

offspring who do evil, children who deal corruptly,

who have forsaken the LORD, who have despised the Holy One of Israel,

Who are utterly estranged!

And the pieces began to come together.  Isaiah is telling us that which God does not want from us - and Isaiah gives us a long list:

When you come to appear before me, who asked this from your hand?

What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices?

Bringing offerings is futile,

I cannot endure solemn assemblies, with iniquity

Your new moons and your appointed festivals my soul hates;

 

they have become a burden to me, I am weary of bearing them.

 

When you stretch out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you;

 

Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen.

Then Isaiah leaves no doubt about what God wants from us:

Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean;

remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes;

cease to do evil, learn to do good;

seek justice, rescue the oppressed,

defend the orphan, plead for the widow.

"Well", you may ask, "what has this to do with us. We are reasonably decent people.  We live within the law.  We celebrate our heritage.  Some money raised is given over for charitable purposes."

But as a Christians we have to look beyond those things that are within our own circle of friends.  Let me share with you what I have learned.

There is a woman in the congregation that I am serving, who learned to her great shock that her husband was sexually molesting her grandchildren.  He was arrested, pleaded guilty and sentenced.  Thus legal justice was served. 

That's only half the story.  The man's family drove her out of the home.  She is taking refuge in her daughters home.  She has to live on the measly amount of $325.00 a month.  She wants to divorce her husband.  She was turned down by legal Aid.

She can do the paperwork for an uncontested divorce, but before she can present this to a court she has to come up with $500.00. 

Her cry is "Were am I going to get $500.00?  And there the matter remains to this moment.

I strongly suspect that in our society her situation is just one of hundreds. It is known as "systemic injustice".

I want to take just a few minutes more regarding another front page headline on the same edition of the TORONTO STAR.  The headline reads, "Nothing can replace devoted family man".

The story was about the funeral Service of Detective Constable Rob Plunkett, a 22-year veteran of the York Regional Police service, killed while trying to arrest a suspected airbag thief.

We take our police officers for granted sometime, until we are brought up short with the realization that when there is evil in the world, somebody pays.

Ron Plunkett paid with his life.

He was sacrificed on the altar of greed.

You can see where I am going with this.  Jesus was sacrificed on the altar of evil.  The altar was the Cross.

One of the refreshing aspects of the new theology is the belief that the Cross is not so much that Jesus "died for our sins" to appease any angry God, but that he was prepared to sacrifice himself, that people - you and me - might accept him and his teachings into our hearts:

to love one another,

to serve one another,

to forgive one another

"to seek justice and resist evil" (United Church Creed)

and thereby live our life to the fullest.

The words of Jesus that have an ever growing impact on my life are:

I have come that you might have life and have it more abundantly.

John 10:10

 

              ==============================================

June 3rd, 2007           ---        Rev. Lorne O'Neill, Minister Emeritus                         

        Three Bible Stories You Don't Have to Believe   

Have you ever gone to a church and been told, "Don't ever come back!"?  That happened to me a few months ago.  But I don't suppose you want to hear about that. … Oh, you do?

Well, last year at this time I spoke about bringing the Kingdom of God on earth.  As part of it I spoke of Noah's Ark, and pointed out that the story holds some great truths passed on to us by generations past: the world is a mess; and we bring judgment on ourselves; but we have another chance to get things right.

But these truths are put across in a story based on how people saw their world and their God back then.  To them, the world was flat; the sky was a solid dome, holding back millions of litres of water; and rain came, not from the clouds, but from God opening a window in the dome.

Even their picture of God was primitive.  He made us, they said, and was sorry He had done so, and wiped out everyone except Noah and his family.  Then, they said, He was very sorry again for what He had done, and promised never to do it again.  And apparently they thought He had a poor memory, saying He put a rainbow in the sky to remind Him of His Promise!

I used that sermon at another church, and one family that runs things there was so incensed that I didn't have their literalistic view of the Bible that I have been told as long as they are in charge, I will never be invited back!

That doesn't bother me.  What bothers me is this: "What would intelligent and educated young people in that community think of a religion that insisted they believe in a flat earth, a solid dome over it, and a forgetful God who drowns a whole world of people?"  Such a belief would really be a barrier to their faith.  There are many stories that, taken literally, become barriers to faith, while if they are recognized as parables, can teach us a great deal.

The first is the story of Creation.  We still have a conflict between those who believe in evolution, and those who take literally the account at the beginning of the Bible.  If fact, there are two stories, in the first two chapters of Genesis.

The first one tells us that God created everything in six days: the light, the sky, vegetation, sun and moon, fish and birds and animals.  And finally He created mankind - male and female - in His own image.  In other words, both sexes are created equally together, and are the culmination of His creation, which makes it hard to understand why women have so often been treated as second-class citizens.

The second account says that when there was as yet no herb of the field, God created a man.  Then knowing that man should not be alone, He decided to make a partner for him.  So He created birds and animals and brought them, one by one, to the man.  But not one was a suitable companion until finally God created a woman, and only she could fill the bill.

Both these accounts are told to share a people's understanding of God and of His purposes for us - in story form.  But they are stories of faith, not of science.  The people who take them literally think the world was made in six days, about six thousand years ago.  Scientists tell us there were rudimentary life-forms 3-1/2 billion years ago.  I usually put it this way: the Bible tells us who made this world, and why; Science tells us how He made it, and when. They are two different realms of truth. (Ephesians 2:10)

Recently a museum in the U. S. planned a display showing the evolution of life on this planet over millions of years.  There would be records from geology, dinosaurs, fossils, carbon dating and so on.  A group of Biblical literalists arrived and demanded that the Biblical creation story be given equal billing.  When the Museum authorities agreed to show both accounts, representatives of a native American tribe came and said they had their own Creation story, and wanted it shown too.  Then the representatives of the local Hindu temple arrived with their creation story.  Eventually there were seven different displays of creation, but a sign on the first one said. "This is the only creation story that can be proven scientifically."

Never get your religion from a book of science, and never get your science from a book of religion.

Here is the Word of God:  "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."  This Word is cradled in the stories of creation, but the stories are only the crib; it's the baby in the crib that is important.

Let's look at another story.  In the Bible, God calls Abraham to be the founder of a new tribe of people obedient to this God called Yahweh.  When He tells Abraham that he will be the father of a new people, He also says, "You will be a blessing to the world."  Apparently they are to share their knowledge and understanding of God with others.

But the Jewish people became in-grown in their faith, and put up barriers between themselves and others.  "We are God's chosen race, and you are not.  We will have nothing to do with you."

Because of their disobedience, God allowed them to be conquered by the Babylonians, and great numbers of them were taken into Exile in Babylonia.  They felt that they had been swallowed up by a terrible monster.  They were held captive for forty years, until the Babylonians were defeated and the Exiles allowed to return home.

During the Exile, people who worshipped other Gods had moved into Judea, and the exiles on returning, found these strangers, and began to intermarry.  Then there was a religious revival, during which Ezra the priest told the Jews that they were to be pure-blooded, and to divorce their foreign spouses, and to send them away with their mixed-blood children.  What a heart-breaking situation that must have been, with homes and families ripped apart.

There was a man whose name we do not know, who saw this a terrible wrong, totally against the will of God, and he wrote a parable to show the utter foolishness of his people.  It's a story of great exaggerations, but I suppose so people wouldn't take it literally.

He created a character to represent the Jewish people.  This character was commanded to preach about God to foreigners.  Well, he wasn't going to do that!  He wasn't going to give God's word to those pagans!  God was supposed to judge the Gentiles, not save them!

So Jonah boarded a ship going the other way.  When a storm came along, he was thrown overboard, and was swallowed up by a great fish, just as the Jews had been swallowed by the Babylonians.  After three days in the belly of the fish, he was spit out onto dry land, and was again told to preach to the people of Ninevah.  Reluctantly, he did.  According to the story, Ninevah would have been easily three times the size of Toronto, from Scarborough to Mississauga.  And every man, woman and child, from the king down to the lowliest beggar, repented and turned to Jonah's God!

Now if I preached a sermon and one or two people were converted, I would rejoice!  Not Jonah!  He converts an entire city, and is he ever mad!  He was hoping to see God's judgment fall on these foreigners.  How dare they repent!

But he sits, watching the city, still hoping to see the judgment.  While he waits a vine grows near him and a large leaf shields him from the sun.  Then a worm chews on the vine, the leaf withers, Jonah is exposed to the heat, and he is angry again.  And God says, You fool.  You get upset over the death of a vine, but you'd like to see the death of every man, woman and child of Ninevah!

It's a parable you see, denouncing the exclusiveness of the Jews.  How sad that some people insist on taking it literally.  It's like the fellow who said, "It's in the Bible so I believe that the whale swallowed Jonah, and if it was in the Bible, I'd believe that Jonah swallowed the whale."

To insist that people take literally what was written as a parable is to put up barriers to faith.  The Word of God is that we are to be a missionary church.  This Word is cradled in the story of Jonah, but the story is only the crib; it's the baby in the crib that is important.

Now, the third story.  When Jesus had walked this earth, people realized there was something very special about this man.

He was tempted; he could be hungry and tired; spiritually worn out; he could suffer; and he could love.  He enjoyed a wedding.  In other words, he was as human as we are.

Yet they knew there was something different about him.  He was unique in his relationship to God.  He spoke as one who had authority.  People were healed at his touch.  "God was in Christ", Paul said.

But how do you pass on to your children that Jesus was both human and divine?  Well, two thousand years ago you wouldn't know anything about genetics or DNA, about sperm and egg, so you would tell a story about a young woman named Mary who becomes pregnant by the Holy Spirit, and has a baby by a virgin birth.  It was their way of saying that Jesus was both human and divine because he had a human mother and a divine father.  And we rejoice to repeat this story every Christmas.  While in the back of our minds we must wonder: a virgin birth?

There are some problems with this story.  For instance, Matthew tells the story, but he has another story along with it.  He knows the prophets say that the Messiah will be a descendant of King David.  So he writes the genealogy of Jesus, starting with Abraham as the father of Issac, and Issac the father of Jacob and so on to David, the father of Solomon, and Solomon the father of Rehoboam, showing the line of the fathers all the way down to JOSEPH!  If Joseph wasn't the father of Jesus, then why trace Jesus' ancestry through him?  The two stories don't agree.

There's another thing: after the Virgin Birth is mentioned at the beginning of both Matthew's and Lukes' gospels, you never hear of it again.  Jesus never says, "Believe in me because I was born of a virgin."  In fact He calls Himself the Son of Man.  His disciples, like Peter, Andrew, James and John, never mention it.  If fact, St. Paul speaks of "Jesus who was descended from David according to the flesh and designated Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead."  (Romans 1:4)

The Christmas story is a beautiful parable to put across who Jesus is - Son of God and Son of Man.  But you don't have to take it literally.  The disciples and Paul and Jesus himself didn't.  Because I know what this parable means, I have no problem singing, "Silent night!  Holy night!  All is calm, all is bright,  Round yon virgin, mother and child…"

But suppose a person comes to believe in Jesus as his Lord and Saviour, and is ready to commit his life to Christ - then you ask, "Do you believe in the Virgin Birth?"  And when he says he has difficulties with that, do you say "Sorry, you can't be a Christian?"  This person believes in the truths that the story tells - that Jesus is both human and divine, and you turn him away?  We are in danger of putting up barriers to faith in God!

The truth of the story is that Jesus is the bridge between God and us.  This Word is cradled in the story of the virgin birth.  But the story is only the crib.  It's the baby that is important.

Three stories containing Gods' truth - but they are parables, not history.

The truth of the first is that "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth".  The creation story is the cradle in which we find the Word of God.

The truth in the second is that we are to be a missionary church, spreading the good news to others.  The story of Jonah is the cradle in which we find the Word of God.

The truth in the third is that Jesus was one of us, but also that "God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself."  The story of the Virgin Birth is the cradle in which we find Jesus, the Word of God.

Maybe next year I'll tell you more stories.  Or, after this sermon, I may not be invited back here again!

        ====================================================

 

April 8, 2007                           Rev. Dr. Alf Dumont

        "WHAT IS EASTER ALL ABOUT, ANYWAY?"                                                                   

What is Easter all about?   Easter is the time we celebrate the journey that Jesus took in life, towards death, into new life through the resurrection:

- he was born, in a humble setting, to two ordinary people;

- he was baptized by John in the Jordan; 

- he taught, he shared, he healed, he inspired;

- he confronted, he challenged, he prophesied;

- he had his last supper with his followers;

- he prayed alone during his time of need;

- he was deserted by his closest friends;

- he was arrested;

- he was arraigned in court;

- he was judged;

- he was crucified;

- his body was placed in a tomb;

- he appeared 3 days later to the disciples because the tomb could not hold him.

Very early on that morning, over 2000 years ago, Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them[1] went to the tomb  taking the spices that they had prepared[2], so that they could prepare the body of Jesus for burial, as Jewish custom demanded.  This was according to the Gospel of Luke.

However, Mary was alone, according to John?s gospel, not with the other women, as recorded in Luke, when she noticed that the stone had been rolled away.  At that discovery, as it would be true for any one of us, she needed to tell someone else, to share her experience. 

So according to John?s gospel, Mary ran to find Peter, and she said to Peter, "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him."

However, the "we" that Mary uses, in John?s gospel, seems to indicate that she was not alone but was with others ? perhaps it was the same group of women recorded in Luke -  and there also seems to be an intimation that the friends of Jesus had taken him to be buried elsewhere, in a secret tomb, because this was Joseph of Arimathea?s tomb.  That friends took him away is intimated because she spoke to Peter, as if, he might know where they laid him.

In Luke?s gospel the women did not immediately seek out Peter, for they were "perplexed about this, [when] suddenly two men, in dazzling clothes, stood beside them.  The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, "Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.[3]"

When they returned "from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest"[4].

In John?s gospel, Peter and the other disciple ran to the tomb to see for themselves, after Mary shared with them.  The other disciple ran faster than Peter and got there first.  But he did not go in.  Peter did. Perhaps the other disciple was frightened.  It would take courage to walk into a tomb where you'd expect to see the body of a dearly loved friend, or, to face the fact that the body of your friend was not there and you wanted to see for yourself.

Peter went straight into the tomb and the other disciple followed.  It was this other, less impulsive, more thoughtful disciple who immediately realized the significance of the folded grave clothes.  John?s gospel states, of this disciple: "and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead.[5] 

What did he believe, if they did not understand scripture?  Did he believe that there was something greater at work, than he could understand?  When they witnessed the empty tomb, and saw the grave clothes neatly folded, they went home!  It seems such a mundane thing to do: to go home!

You'd have thought they might have rushed excitedly over to their friends, to break the news and discuss, in an animated fashion, what this might mean.  You?d have thought they might have wanted to drag other people back to the garden with them, so that they could all stand there in astonishment and work out between them what had happened.  But they didn't. They went home! 

And where was home, since the one they followed, Jesus, once said, "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head."?[6] 

Maybe home is that place where we all go when we are troubled and cannot figure life out.  We go to that place deep inside ourselves where we feel at peace, where we feel secure, or, we go back to those places of our early childhood, where we knew comfort, or, maybe we just go back to where we have established, in the present, as a home and seek to be alone for a while, until we can gain perspective again. 

Later in John?s gospel, after Peter and the disciple left, Mary remained behind and had a dialogue with Jesus, whom, at first, she did not recognize.  The dialogue concludes this way:  "Jesus said to her,?Mary!" She turned and said to him in Hebrew, "Rabboni!" (which means Teacher).  Jesus said to her, "Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ?I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.? "[7]

Who were the brothers Jesus refers to: his brothers, James and Joses and Judas and Simon[8] or the disciples, his brothers in the spirit?

Peter and the other disciple and the other women did not stay. Mary was alone when the risen Christ appeared.  

Perhaps they were in too much of a rush!  We are always too much in a rush!

Perhaps they were they were not ready!  Are we ever ready? 

Perhaps it would have been too much, at that point, for them, to absorb and then believe!  Perhaps that is the way it is for us!

Perhaps Mary saw Jesus, in John?s record, and perhaps Mary and other women saw the angels, in Luke?s record, because they had reached that level of acceptance at Jesus? death, for they did not have the feelings of guilt that the other disciples had, at deserting him.  At any rate, at that point, the disciples did not seem to have much regard for Mary's feelings.  They were captured in their own feelings, as we all are in grief.

Somehow, in both Luke and in John, Mary was the one who saw the angels and experienced the presence of Jesus as he shared with her.

In John?s gospel, Jesus asked Mary why she was weeping, which seems an odd question.  It must have been obvious why she was weeping, especially to Jesus.  But perhaps he knew Mary needed to articulate her feelings of pain and loss, at this, first stage in dealing with grief, and in being able to find new life again.

Yet her answer too was unexpected.

You'd have thought she might be weeping because Jesus, the man she loved and followed, had been executed.   Or perhaps because of the shock of finding the grave empty on top of all the other traumatic events of the previous couple of days.

Although it may have been all of that, it was more, for she said that she was weeping because:  "They have taken away my Lord and I don't know where they've laid him."[9]  She was weeping because she could not fulfill her duty to one whom she loved and honored.  She could not bring closure to this tragic death.  So many tears are shed because we cannot make closure.

Mary?s life changed from that encounter with the risen Christ.  She went straight away to all the other disciples.  She didn't allow them to push her out of the way, this time.  She knew she had to tell her story no matter how she would be received.  She told them her story: "I have seen the Lord!"

All encounters with the risen Christ change people.

This is our Easter promise.

This is the Easter story.

Resurrection is expressed in many different ways.

Resurrection is expressed in many different stories.

Resurrection is expressed in our stories.

What is Easter all about?

Easter is a journey.

Life.  Death.  And resurrection to new life.

Easter is believing that:

God is stronger than death.

Hope is stronger than hopelessness

Love is stronger than fear.

THANKS BE TO GOD

 

 

[1] Luke 24:10    [2]Luke 24:1    [3] Luke 24:4-7    [4] Luke 24:9    [5] John 20:8-9    [6] Luke 9:58    [7] John 20:16-17    [8] Mark 6:3    [9] John 20:13   

                    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

October 29, 2006                          Rev. Dr. Harold Wells

TO LIVE WITH RESPECT IN CREATION               Genesis 2: 4-15.

It’s good to be in an old Methodist Church, and to celebrate our Methodist and United Church heritage here in this place. 

Our Methodist founder, John Wesley, was, as you know, a powerful evangelist, who led a great revival in England in the 18th century, a revival that spread into Ontario in the 19^th century, and established itself here in Alliston as far back as 1851.  Wesley and his Methodist movement were notable for their warm and passionate preaching of the love and grace of God, and reached out especially to the working classes of England. 

Many people don’t know that there was a strong social justice emphasis to Wesley and his preaching. Both in England, and in Canada, the Methodist movement championed the poor, opposed child labour, supported the early labour movement, and ardently opposed slavery.  We in the United Church also have a history and tradition of standing up against social evils. 

In pioneer Ontario, about the time when this congregation was founded, one of the great evils was alcohol - yes - the bottle! and Methodist women especially, in the Women’s Christian Temperance League, were campaigners against the abuse of the bottle.  Today the problem of alcohol is still with us, not to mention other serious addiction problems, but now we have other greater social ills.

This morning I stand very much in that Wesleyan Methodist tradition when I address a controversial issue that faces us in our time, namely the crisis of the environment, especially regarding water and global warming.  I don’t pretend to be an environmental scientist, or expert on international economics.  But I should make clear that I’m not just expressing my own personal, rather amateur opinions here. 

I’m speaking with information provided by the organization called ‘Kairos’.  Kairos, in Greek, means ‘the critical time’, or the ‘time of decision’.  Kairos is the national ecumenical Christian organization that addresses social and ethical questions, - supported by all the major churches, - Presbyterian, Lutheran, United, Roman Catholic, Anglican, Mennonites, Quakers, - these are all part of this national organization that addresses social concerns.  

All of these churches, through Kairos, are promoting information and action about an impending world-wide water crisis, as that relates to global warming.  And what could be more ‘newsy’ just now than global warming, considering the new ‘Clean Air Act’ which the federal government has just announced?

Why should we talk about this in church?  Isn’t this a matter of politics?  Well, we should talk about this in church, because environmental problems are, at root, ethical and spiritual problems.  That’s why ministers, and the churches, must have something to say about this - one of the most pressing  spiritual dilemmas of our time.

So, we begin with the Bible.  In that ancient creation story of Genesis chapter 2, we find sublime Hebrew poetry.  Genesis is not in competition with science or history; rather it’s ancient wisdom and insight into God as Creator, and our calling as human beings.  The poet tells us that God caused it to rain upon the earth; and a spring rose up from the earth. God created the garden of Eden, and a river flowed in Eden to water the garden.  It also speaks of four other great rivers.  Notice how often water is mentioned in this creation story?

We also hear that “the Lord God formed the human being from the dust of the ground , and breathed into its nostrils the breath of life.  And the human being became a living soul.”  And “the Lord God put the human being in the garden to till it and keep it.”   The poet is telling us that we should see the world as a ‘garden’, which implies that it requires cultivation and care. The task of the human being is to take care of garden of the planet Earth:  To help it blossom and flourish, to nurture it, so it realizes its full potential.  It’s a gentle image, recognizing the special place of human beings in the created order. 

But it does not suggest that we are to dominate or control the earth, and certainly not to own it.  The poet is saying not that the earth and its creatures are here to serve us.  No, it seems that we are here to serve it!  As our creed says: “We are not alone. We live in God’s world.” And we are called to “live with respect in creation.”   “Respect!”  So we are not to look down upon other creatures, - animals, trees and plants, the soil, the water.   We are not to be masters of the earth, but, gently, to cooperate with its sacred balance. 

The poet goes on in the next chapter, Genesis 3, to tell of human sin.  The man and woman, in Genesis 3, are tempted to “be as God” - to take all power and authority unto themselves.  The result of their sin is conflict between themselves, and between them and the earth, and the earth’s creatures. 

What was to be faithful stewardship has become rapacious domination of the earth itself, and gross injustice among human beings.  Notice that sin, here, is not just a matter of personal moral failures.  So much of our tradition has stressed sexual misdemeanors.  But sin, in this text at least, has nothing to do with sex.  Rather, it has to do with “playing God,” wanting to be “as God.” 

Sin in our time manifests itself especially through our use and abuse of modern technology, and our relentless quest for domination of the earth, for our own profit, luxury and comfort.  Maybe that’s the most significant form of sin that we’re involved in today - both as individuals, and as a society, and as a species.

The question today is whether we can, as a human race, repent with regard to the environment - in other words, - can we change direction in time to avoid colossal environmental disaster?  Can we rein in our own tendency to domination in order to avoid destroying our habitat, and so destroying ourselves in the process?

Now the focus of Kairos this year is the water crisis, - one fundamental part of the larger environmental danger facing our world.  But do you believe that there is a water crisis?  Lots of people don’t.  We don’t feel like we’re in a water crisis here in Ontario.  We’re able to turn on our taps and find good drinking water.

In fact Canada as a whole is marvellously blessed with fresh water.  Do you know that less than 5% of all the water on earth is usable, fresh water?  But Canada has 20% of all the freshwater in the world!  Here in Alliston, I understand, you have plenty of water piped in from Georgian Bay, and from your own local underground aquifers.

And, in proximity to the Great Lakes, why should we worry?  We’re sitting on a gold mine, right?  It’s even better than oil wells.  We have water galore.  The most precious substance in the world.  So, for now, Canadians generally are well off for water.  With some exceptions, like some of our native peoples on First Nations reserves.  But the rest of the world is in serious trouble.

Already many parts of Africa, Asia, and even of the United States - especially the American midwest - are seriously water hungry.  Already 31 countries are facing water shortages.  This situation is expected to get much worse in the decade or so ahead of us.

There are a number of complex factors behind this growing crisis: the most important of which is global warming, which promises to create an extremely unstable world.  We in Canada cannot hope to be untouched by global warming.  In a world that’s heating up, we can expect, not so much oil wars, such as we’ve had recently, but water wars.  The world, including the United States, will be clamoring after Canadian water.  

Now water shortage and global warming are intimately connected.  The scientific communities are virtually all agreed now that the earth is warming dangerously, mainly because of human use of fossil fuels and so-called greenhouse gases, which trap heat in the atmosphere.  We’ve noticed warmer winters - which is kind of nice,  - and hotter summers.  We’ve seen more extreme unstable weather conditions in the last few years - more powerful, more destructive hurricanes, tornadoes, which have also been linked to global warming.

Katrina at New Orleans turned out to be far more destructive than 9/11.  Maybe instead of a war on terrorism we need a war on global warming.  Not only that, but greater heat means, among other things, swift evaporation and depletion of the precious surface water needed for drinking and agriculture.  Greater heat means more forest fires and crop failures. 

These things are already dramatically visible in central Africa, and to some extent even in North America.  As some of us saw on a TV documentary just the other night, even the Canadian prairies have experienced serious water shortages, and B.C. and northwest Ontario are experiencing a great increase in forest fires. 

At the same time, the Arctic ice is ominously thawing and fresh northern waters are draining into the ocean; icebergs are melting, polar bears disappearing.  The vast expansion of cold Arctic water flowing into the Atlantic threatens to disrupt the warm ocean currents that moderate temperatures in Europe and parts of North America.  If the gulf stream is disrupted - and this could happen any time - we could be faced with a wildly different climate, and a completely different kind of world.

So all of this is already happening and may be irreversible.  People like David Suzuki have been warning us about this for a long time.  But we’ve ignored them.  It is a spiritual problem, you see. We’ve known about this danger for a long time, but we don’t want to face unpleasant realities.  We don’t want our comfortable life styles questioned.  After all, we’re OK, aren’t we?  So far?

Well, can anything be done about this colossal problem, or should we just give up and accept the inevitable?  Some experts say that we’ve passed the tipping point.  It’s already happening and it’s going to get worse, no matter what we do.  Others say, Yes, it is already happening, but, if we act decisively now it can be at least alleviated.  We can at least minimize the damage, if we act now to diminish green house gases.

But that would imply huge investment in alternative sources of energy; vast investment in the development of solar power and wind power, major conservation efforts, and cleaner energy systems for our cars.  Development of such new technologies may not all be sacrifice; they might even produce employment and prosperity.

But our governments haven’t been able even to progress toward the modest goals of the Kyoto accord.  And our present government is not even committed to that.  If our governments were going to lead us into such massive changes, they could only do it with solid public support.  People like us would have to be convinced, and mobilized, as if we were going to war.

It would take fundamental changes in our attitudes to fend off global warming, and its accompanying water crisis.  For example, it would have to become unfashionable to drive large gas-guzzling cars and trucks.  Not only unfashionable, but laughable.  Little cars will have to become cool.  Maybe WWJD would be useful here.  WWJD?  What Would Jesus Do?  Lately this has been translated: What Would Jesus Drive?  Jesus, who entered Jerusalem not on a camel, but on a humble donkey.

What would this donkey-riding Jesus be riding in our time?  Can you seriously imagine Jesus driving a big Mercedes, or a big SUV?  No, he’d be driving one of these tiny little ‘smart cars’, or more likely, Jesus would be riding a bike, or, taking a bus.  Well, I know you’re not all going to go right out and sell your SUV or van tomorrow.  But if we own a big car, maybe next time we buy one, we should consider getting into something smaller and less destructive to the environment.

Maybe we should all start thinking about alternative vehicles, - electric?  hydrogen? Or whatever.  Though I do drive a small car, I can’t really get too self-righteous about this, since I do fly in airplanes from time to time, and airplanes are huge polluters. 

But, so far, there’s no sign of any such widespread changes of attitude, or of political will to really grapple with this problem. 

Unfortunately one of the major responses so far, where water is concerned, is privatization.  Privatization - taking water and water delivery systems out of public control and allowing private companies to manage them.  In other words, some people have figured out how to make money off this crisis.  Smart people have become aware that water is fast becoming the new ‘oil’.  You can get rich by selling water.  Especially in the poorest regions where the water crisis has already struck. 

The World Bank has been insisting that poor countries, if they want debt relief, must privatize their water systems.  The International Monetary Fund, dominated by the United States, and of which Canada is a member, has required fourteen less developed countries to privatize their water delivery. 

And who are the new owners of water and water delivery systems?  Giant international conglomerates, whose bottom line is not providing water to the people who need it, but, of course, profit for their shareholders.  Among them are certain companies that we know well: Coca Cola and Pepsi Cola are now major bottlers and sellers of water! 

Nothing wrong with private business, nothing wrong with making a profit.  But keep in mind that such businesses do not exist to provide an essential resource to all the people.  They exist to maximize their own profits, and therefore to maximize usage by those who can pay.  Since they sell water at a profit, they want as much water used as possible.

But, - can anyone rightly own the sacred resource of water, without which no creature can exist?  When water is controlled by private interests, and sold for a profit, of course it will go to those who are able to pay.  So water will end up being restricted to people who can pay for it.  This is already happening massively in parts of the Third World.

We can be sure that in the years to come there will be enormous pressure from the United States for Canada to privatize its water and to tank it, or pipe it south, and sell it to those who can pay for it, to fill their swimming pools and wash their cars.  We will have to be vigilant about this if we are to avoid a two-tier water system, even in Canada.

Incidentally, it’s not hard to guess who are the most water-deprived in Canada already.  Yes, the First Nations folk.  On some southern Ontario reserves, water supplies are not drinkable, Native folks in some areas of Six Nations reserve have to buy bottled water!

Now bottled water is another form of privatization: large water companies buy up agricultural land, then draw water out of underground aquifers, and sell it for a profit. When the wells are drained dry, they just move on to the next one.  I’ve heard of farmers whose wells have dried up, because water bottling companies have bought up nearby land and drained the aquifers of water, faster than it can be replaced.

Do you know that our United Church of Canada, at General Council last summer, asked all of its people to avoid using bottled water.  Why?  Because water is not a commodity to be bought and sold.  It is God’s free gift to all creatures.  Water must be seen as a right of all people, not something available only to those who can afford it.

As I said, it’s very interesting that, in the old days of the Methodist Church here in Ontario, from this very pulpit, there must have been powerful preaching against ‘the bottle’.  Drinking booze was a sin in those days.  But times have changed.  Now our church is preaching not against ‘the bottle,’ but against bottled water! 

Why?  Because those underground aquifers belong to all of us.  A resource which belongs to us all is being sold for a profit.  Not only that, but the throw-away plastic bottles are massively ending up in land fill sites, where they slowly decompose and seep toxic substance into the soil. 

So what can we do about all this?  We can start by being aware.  We can contribute to the groundswell of public concern that must grow, if anything is ever to be done to address these questions.

At the back of the church this morning there are letter forms that, if you wish, you can sign and send to the government.  This lets the government know that there are lots of people out here who want action on water and global warming.  They have to know that public support is there before they will act.  And we can begin to make those small changes in our own personal lifestyles to contribute to environmental well-being.

The bottom line is this: Water is God’s free gift to all creatures.  It is not a commodity to be bought and sold.  Clean water belongs to all of us equally; a sacred trust and the right of all people.

Wesley and his Methodist movement, in their day, fought the evil of slavery.  Our Methodist pioneer forebears fought the evil of drink.  Today we have new battles, even more urgent.

As Christian people, we are called to repent, to change direction; or, to put it in the words of our creed: “we are called to be the church..... to live with respect in creation, to love and serve others, to seek justice and resist evil.........”  

Thanks be to God.            Amen.